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THREE    PHI    BETA   KAPPA  ADDRESSES. 
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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


THREE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA 
ADDRESSES 


THREE  PHI  BETA  KAPPA 
ADDRESSES 

A   COLLEGE    FETICH 

1883 

"SHALL   CROMWELL   HAVE   A   STATUE?" 

1902 

SOME   MODERN   COLLEGE   TENDENCIES 

1906 

BY 

CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS 


mmm 


BOSTON   AND  NEW   YOEK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

®fce  Ifttoergibe  $re&,  Camferi&ge 

1907 


•*,  v\ 


GENERAL 


COPYRIGHT  1907  BY  CHARLES  FRANCIS  ADAMS 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  April  IQ07 


PREFACE 

The  reason  of  this  republication  at  the  present  time  is 
sufficiently  explained  in  the  beginning  of  the  third  of 
the  addresses  (pp.  101-3).  It  is  in  the  nature  of  a  re- 
cord. Fifty  years  after  graduation  from  Harvard,  I  am 
closing  a  term  of  service  on  its  Board  of  Overseers  ex- 
tending over  half  that  period.  The  first  of  the  three  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  addresses,  —  A  College  Fetich,  —  when 
delivered  at  Cambridge  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago,  excited  active  discussion;  and,  when  the  third 
address,  that  entitled  Some  Modern  College  Tenden- 
cies, was  delivered  in  New  York  in  June  last,  it  ap- 
peared that  the  earlier  effort  had  not  yet  been  alto- 
gether forgotten.  Long  out  of  print,  the  recollection 
of  it  was  decidedly  vague;  and,  both  in  the  comments 
of  the  press  and  in  private,  it  was  assumed  that  be- 
tween the  two  addresses  there  was  a  wide  divergence 
of  view,  —  the  opinions  entertained  in  1883  were  re- 
ferred to  as  distinctly  at  variance  with  those  expressed 
in  1906. 

Had  I  during  those  intervening  years  seen  any  rea- 
son for  a  change  of  view,  I  should  not  for  a  moment 
have  hesitated  in  giving  utterance  to  the  later  and  more 
matured  beliefs;  for  consistency  in  these  matters  is  apt 
to  be  indicative  of  little  else  than  either  an  inability 
or  an  unwillingness  to  observe  and  to  learn.  In  those 
three  and  twenty  years,  also,  a  great  many  things  hap- 
pened. It  so  chances,  however,  that  in  this  particular 
case  there  was  no  inconsistency  between  the  two  ut- 
terances, no  change  or  modification  of  view.    The  ad- 


175601 


vi  PREFACE 

dress  of  1906  was  merely  a  development,  both  natural 
and  logical,  of  the  ideas  and  conclusions  set  forth  in  the 
address  of  1883.  That  this  is  so,  is  best  shown  by  print- 
ing the  two  together.    Hence  this  publication. 

In  reproducing  these  papers,  parts  of  paragraphs 
here  and  there,  notably  on  pages  twenty-one  and 
forty -three,  have  been  recast,  and  a  few  verbal  changes 
have  elsewhere  been  made;  but  in  no  case  has  the 
sense  of  the  original  utterance  been  altered,  or  in  the 
least  modified.  The  work  of  revision  has  been  con- 
fined strictly  to  modes  of  expression. 

Two  of  the  three  Phi  Beta  Kappa  addresses  relate 
to  educational  topics;  the  second  (pp.  49-97)  was 
devoted  to  another  subject.  It  is  here  included  simply 
because  it  was  delivered  before  a  chapter  of  the  Fra- 
ternity, and,  at  the  time,  attracted  attention.  I  have 
since  seen  no  occasion  to  modify  the  views  expressed 
in  it.  The  three  remaining  speeches  and  papers  are 
included  because,  relating  to  Harvard  University,  they 
round  out  a  record,  now  nearing  its  end,  of  personal 
and  official  connection  with  it. 

C.  F.  A. 

Lincoln,  Mass.,  January  14,  1907. 


CONTENTS 

A  College  Fetich 3 

"Shall  Cromwell  have  a  Statue?"      ....        47 

Some  Modern  College  Tendencies 99 

The  Journeyman's  Retrospect 149 

The  Harvard  Tuition  Fee 159 

The  Fiftieth  Year—  1856-1906 185 


A   COLLEGE  FETICH 


V      0F THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

£ALIFOg£^ 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH1 

The  ancient  languages,  with  great  beauty  of  structure, 
contain  wonderful  remains  of  genius,  which  draw,  and  al- 
ways will  draw,  certain  like-minded  men,  —  Greek  men,  and 
Roman  men,  in  all  countries,  to  their  study;  but  by  a  won- 
derful drowsiness  of  usage,  they  had  exacted  the  study  of  all 
men.  Once  (say  two  centuries  ago)  Latin  and  Greek  had  a 
strict  relation  to  all  the  science  and  culture  there  was  in  Eu- 
rope, and  the  Mathematics  had  a  momentary  importance  at 
some  era  of  activity  in  physical  science.  These  things  became 
stereotyped  as  education,  as  the  manner  of  men  is.  But  the 
Good  Spirit  never  cared  for  the  colleges,  and  though  all  men 
and  boys  were  now  drilled  in  Latin,  Greek  and  Mathematics, 
it  had  quite  left  these  shells  high  and  dry  on  the  beach,  and 
was  now  creating  and  feeding  other  matters  at  other  ends  of 
the  world.  But  in  a  hundred  high  schools  and  colleges  this 
warfare  against  common  sense  still  goes  on.  Four,  or  six,  or 
ten  years,  the  pupil  is  parsing  Greek  and  Latin,  and  as  soon 
as  he  leaves  the  University,  as  it  is  ludicrously  styled,  he  shuts 
those  books  for  the  last  time.  Some  thousands  of  young  men 
are  graduated  at  our  colleges  in  this  country  every  year,  and 
the  persons  who,  at  forty  years,  still  read  Greek,  can  all  be 
counted  on  your  hand.  I  never  met  with  ten.  Four  or  five 
persons  I  have  seen  who  read  Plato.  —  R.  W.  Emerson, 
New  England  Reformers.    (1844.) 

The  Roman  mind  took  its  quickening  from  Greek  liter- 
ature, and  this  quickening  worked  at  first  creatively,  to  the 
purposes  of  a  pure  Latin  style  .  .  .  when  Roman  literature 
went  to  seed  in  what  is  perhaps  the  best  book  of  rhetoric  ever 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  Harvard  Chapter  of  the  fra- 
ternity of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  in  Sanders  Theatre,  Cambridge, 
Thursday,  June  28, 1883.  See  Nos.  21  (1886)  and  42  (1891)  of  the 
Bibliographical  Contributions  of  Library  of  Harvard  University. 


6  THREE  <S>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

written, —  I  refer  to  the  "Institutes"  of  Quintilian,  —  we  find 
that  accomplished  teacher  bewailing  the  fact  that  Greek,  as 
taught  in  the  Roman  schools  of  his  day,  had  come  to  be  re- 
garded with  a  kind  of  superstition,  and  so  was,  for  the  most 
part,  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help  to  Latin  culture.  .  .  . 
What  we  call  the  Renaissance  was  a  rejuvenation  wrought 
in  the  European  mind  by  transfusing  into  it  the  power  drawn 
from  the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome,  after  the  intellect- 
ual lifeblood  of  Europe  had  been  thinned  by  a  too  long  and 
exclusive  nurture  on  the  chopped  logic  of  the  school-room. 
To-day,  when  Greek  has  come  to  be  taught  for  philology 
rather  than  for  literature,  and  when  college  graduates  who 
can  at  sight  read  Plato  with  understanding,  or  Aristophanes 
with  zest,  have  become  almost  an  extinct  species,  we  are 
seriously  discussing  the  place  and  value  of  Greek  in  the  col- 
lege curriculum.  —  J.  C.  Welling,  English  in  Preparatory 
Schools.    (1893.) 

I  am  here  to-day  for  a  purpose.  After  no  little  hesita- 
tion I  accepted  the  invitation  to  address  your  Society, 
simply  because  I  had  something  which  I  much  wanted 
to  say;  and  this  seemed  to  me  the  best  possible  place, 
and  this  the  most  appropriate  occasion,  for  saying  it. 
My  message,  if  such  I  may  venture  to  call  it,  is  in  no 
wise  sensational.  On  the  contrary,  it  partakes,  I  fear, 
rather  of  the  commonplace.  Such  being  the  case,  I 
shall  give  it  the  most  direct  utterance  of  which  I  am 
capable. 

It  is  twenty-seven  years  since  the  class  (1856)  of  which 
I  was  a  member  was  graduated  from  this  college.  To- 
day I  have  come  back  here  to  take,  for  the  first  time,  an 
active  part  of  any  prominence  iirthe  exercises  of  its  Com- 
mencement week.  I  have  come  back,  as  what  we  are 
pleased  to  term  an  educated  man,  to  speak  to  educated 
men;  a  literary  man,  as  literary  men  go,  I  have  under- 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  7 

taken  to  address  a  literary  society;  a  man  who  has,  in 
any  event,  led  an  active,  changeable,  bustling  life,  I 
am  to  say  what  I  have  to  say  to  men,  not  all  of  whom 
have  led  similar  lives.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  one  who 
had  contended  in  the  classic  games  returning,  after  they 
were  over,  to  the  gymnasium  in  which  he  had  been 
trained.  It  would  not  greatly  matter  whether  he  had 
acquitted  himself  well  or  ill  in  the  arena,  —  whether 
he  had  come  back  crowned  with  victory  or  broken  by 
defeat:  in  the  full  light  of  his  experience  of  the  strug- 
gle, he  would  be  disposed  to  look  over  the  old  para- 
phernalia and  recall  the  familiar  exercises,  passing 
judgment  upon  them.  Tested  by  hard,  actual  results, 
was  the  theory  of  his  training  correct;  were  the  ap- 
pliances of  the  gymnasium  good ;  did  what  he  got  there 
contribute  to  his  victory,  or  had  it  led  to  his  defeat? 
Taken  altogether,  was  he  strengthened,  or  had  he  been 
emasculated  by  his  gymnasium  course?  The  college 
was  our  gymnasium.  It  is  now  the  gymnasium  of  our 
children.  Thirty  years  after  graduation  a  man  has 
either  won  or  lost  the  game.  Winner  or  loser,  looking 
back  through  the  medium  of  that  thirty  years  of  hard 
experience,  how  do  we  see  the  college  now  ? 

It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  from  this  point  of  view 
we  regarded  it,  its  theories  and  its  methods,  with  either 
unmixed  approval  or  unqualified  condemnation.  I  can- 
not deny  that  the  Cambridge  of  the  sixth  decennium 
of  the  century,  as  Thackeray  would  have  phrased  it, 
was  in  many  respects  a  pleasant  place.  There  were 
good  things  about  it.  By  the  student  who  understood 
himself,  and  knew  what  he  wanted,  much  might  here 
be  learned ;  while  for  most  of  us  the  requirements  were 
not  excessive.  We  of  the  average  majority  did  not 
understand  ourselves,  or  know  what  we  wanted:    the 


8  THREE  3>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

average  man  of  the  majority  rarely  does.  And  so  for 
us  the  college  course,  instead  of  being  a  time  of  prepara- 
tion for  the  hard  work  of  life,  was  a  pleasant  sort  of 
interlude  rather,  before  that  work  began.  We  so  re- 
garded it.  I  should  be  very  sorry  not  to  have  enjoyed 
that  interlude.  I  am  glad  that  I  came  here;  glad 
that  I  took  my  degree.  But  as  a  training-place  for 
youth  to  enable  them  to  engage  to  advantage  in  the 
struggle  of  life,  —  to  fit  them  to  hold  their  own  in  it, 
and  to  carry  off  the  prizes,  —  I  must  in  all  honesty  say, 
that,  looking  back  through  the  years,  and  recalling  the 
requirements  and  methods  of  the  ancient  institution, 
I  am  unable  to  speak  of  it  with  all  the  respect  I  could 
wish.  Such  training  as  I  got,  useful  for  the  struggle, 
I  got  after,  instead  of  before  graduation,  and  it  came 
hard;  while  I  never  have  been  able  —  and  now,  no 
matter  how  long  I  may  live,  I  never  shall  be  able  — 
to  overcome  some  great  disadvantages  which  the  super- 
stitions and  wrong  theories  and  worse  practices  of  my 
Alma  Mater  inflicted  upon  me.  And  not  on  me  alone. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  my  contemporaries,  as  I  have 
observed  them  in  success  and  failure.  What  was  true 
in  this  respect  of  the  college  of  thirty  years  ago  is,  I  ap- 
prehend, at  least  partially  true  of  the  college  of  to-day ; 
and  it  is  true  not  only  of  Harvard,  but  of  other  col- 
leges, and  of  them  quite  as  much  as  of  Harvard. 
They  fail  properly  to  fit  their  graduates  for  the  work 
they  have  to  do  in  the  life  that  awaits  them. 

This  is  harsh  language  to  apply  to  one's  nursing 
mother,  and  it  calls  for  an  explanation.  That  expla- 
nation I  shall  now  try  to  give.  I  have  said  that  the 
college  of  thirty  years  ago  did  not  fit  its  graduates  for 
the  work  they  had  to  do  in  the  actual  life  which  awaited 
them.   Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  what  that  life  has 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  9 

been,  and  then  we  will  pass  to  the  preparation  we  re- 
ceived for  it.  When  the  men  of  my  time  graduated, 
Franklin  Pierce  was  President,  the  war  in  the  Crimea 
was  just  over,  and  three  years  were  yet  to  pass  before 
Solferino  would  be  fought.  No  united  Germany  and  no 
united  Italy  existed.  The  railroad  and  the  telegraph 
were  in  their  infancy;  neither  nitro-glycerine  nor  the 
telephone  had  been  discovered.  The  years  since  then 
have  been  fairly  crammed  with  events.  A  new  world 
has  come  into  existence,  and  a  world  wholly  unlike 
that  of  our  fathers,  —  unlike  it  in  peace  and  unlike  it 
in  war.  It  is  a  world  of  great  intellectual  quickening, 
which  has  extended  until  it  now  touches  a  vastly  larger 
number  of  men,  in  many  more  countries,  than  it  ever 
touched  before.  Not  only  have  the  nations  been  rudely 
shaken  up,  but  they  have  been  drawn  together.  In- 
terdependent thought  has  been  carried  on,  interacting 
agencies  have  been  at  work  in  widely  separated  coun- 
tries and  different  tongues.  The  solidarity  of  the  peo- 
ples has  been  developed.  Old  professions  have  lost 
their  prominence;  new  professions  have  arisen.  Sci- 
ence has  extended  its  domains,  and  superseded  au- 
thority with  bewildering  rapidity.  The  artificial  bar- 
riers —  national,  political,  social,  economical,  religious, 
intellectual  —  have  given  way  in  every  direction,  and 
the  civilized  races  of  the  world  are  becoming  one  peo- 
ple, even  if  a  discordant  and  quarrelsome  people.  We 
all  of  us  live  more  in  the  present  and  less  in  the  past 
than  we  did  thirty  years  ago,  —  much  less  in  the  past 
and  much  more  in  the  present  than  those  who  preceded 
us  did  fifty  years  ago.  The  world  as  it  is  may  be  a  very 
bad  and  a  very  vulgar  world,  —  insincere,  democratic, 
disrespectful,  dangerous,  and  altogether  hopeless ;  I  do 
not  think  it  is:  but  with  that  thesis  I  have,  here  and 


10  THREE   <£  B   K  ADDRESSES 

now,  nothing  to  do.  However  bad  and  hopeless,  it  is 
nevertheless  the  world  in  which  our  lot  was  east,  and 
in  which  we  have  had  to  live,  —  a  bustling,  active, 
nervous  world,  and  one  very  hard  to  keep  up  with. 
This  much  all  will  admit;  while  I  think  I  may  further 
add,  that  its  most  marked  characteristic  has  been  an 
intense  mental  and  physical  activity,  which,  working 
simultaneously  in  many  tongues,  has  attempted  much 
and  questioned  all  things. 

Now  as  respects  the  college  preparation  we  received 
to  fit  us  to  take  part  in  this  world's  debate.  As  one  goes 
on  in  life,  especially  in  modern  life,  a  few  conclusions 
are  hammered  into  us  by  the  hard  logic  of  facts.  Among 
those  conclusions,  I  think  I  may,  without  much  fear 
of  contradiction,  enumerate  such  practical,  common- 
sense  and  commonplace  precepts  as  that  superficiality 
is  dangerous,  as  well  as  contemptible,  in  that  it  is  apt 
to  invite  defeat;  or,  again,  that  what  is  worth  doing  at 
all  is  worth  doing  well;  or,  third,  that  when  one  is 
given  work  to  do,  it  is  well  to  prepare  one's  self  for  that 
specific  work,  and  not  to  occupy  one's  time  in  acquiring 
information,  no  matter  how  innocent  or  elegant,  or 
generally  useful,  which  has  no  probable  bearing  on  that 
work;  or,  finally,  —  and  this  I  regard  as  the  greatest 
of  all  practical  precepts,  —  that  every  man  should  in 
life  master  some  one  thing,  be  it  great  or  be  it  small, 
so  that  thereon  he  may  be  the  highest  living  authority : 
that  one  thing  he  should  know  thoroughly. 

How  did  Harvard  College  prepare  me,  and  my  ninety- 
two  classmates  of  the  year  1856,  for  our  work  in  a  life 
in  which  we  have  had  these  homely  precepts  brought 
home  to  us  ?  In  answering  the  question  it  is  not  alto- 
gether easy  to  preserve  one's  gravity.  The  college  fitted 
us  for  this  active,  bustling,  hard-hitting,  many-tongued 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  11 

world,  caring  nothing  for  authority  and  little  for  the 
past,  but  full  of  its  living  thought  and  living  issues,  in 
dealing  with  which  there  was  no  man  who  did  not  stand 
in  pressing  and  constant  need  of  every  possible  pre- 
paration as  respects  knowledge  and  exactitude  and 
thoroughness,  —  the  poor  old  college  prepared  us  to 
play  our  parts  in  this  world  by  compelling  us,  directly 
and  indirectly,  to  devote  the  best  part  of  our  school 
lives  to  acquiring  a  confessedly  superficial  knowledge 
of  two  dead  languages. 

In  regard  to  the  theory  of  what  we  call  a  liberal  edu- 
cation, there  is,  as  I  understand  it,  not  much  room  for 
difference  of  opinion.  There  are  certain  fundamental 
requirements,  without  a  thorough  mastery  of  which 
no  one  can  pursue  a  specialty  to  advantage.  Upon 
these  common  fundamentals  are  grafted  the  specialties, 
—  the  students'  electives,  as  we  call  them.  The  man 
is  simply  mad,  who  in  these  days  takes  all  knowledge 
for  his  province.  He  who  professes  to  do  so  can  only 
mean  that  he  proposes,  in  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  to  re- 
duce superficiality  to  a  science. 

Such  is  the  theory.  What  is  the  practice  ?  Thirty  years 
ago,  as  for  three  centuries  before,  Greek  and  Latin 
were  the  fundamentals.  The  grammatical  study  of  two 
dead  languages  was  the  basis  of  all  liberal  education. 
It  remains  its  basis  still.  But,  following  the  theory  out, 
I  think  all  will  admit  that,  as  respects  the  fundamentals, 
the  college  training  should  be  compulsory  and  severe. 
It  should  extend  through  the  whole  course.  No  one 
ought  to  become  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  until,  upon  these 
fundamentals,  he  had  passed  an  examination,  the  scope 
and  thoroughness  of  which  should  set  at  defiance  what 
is  perfectly  well  defined  as  the  science  of  cramming. 
Could  the  graduates  of  my  time  have  passed  such  an 


12  THREE  <S>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

examination  in  Latin  and  Greek  ?  If  they  could  have 
done  that,  I  should  now  see  a  reason  in  the  course  pur- 
sued with  us.  When  we  were  graduated,  we  should 
have  acquired  a  training,  such  as  it  was;  it  would  have 
amounted  to  something;  and,  having  a  bearing  on  the 
future,  it  would  have  been  of  use  in  it.  But  it  never  was 
for  a  moment  assumed  that  we  could  have  passed  any 
such  examination.  In  justice  to  all,  I  must  admit  that 
no  self-deception  was  indulged  in  on  this  point.  Not 
only  was  the  knowledge  of  our  theoretical  fundamentals 
to  the  last  degree  superficial,  but  nothing  better  was 
expected.  The  requirements  spoke  for  themselves;  and 
the  subsequent  examinations  never  could  have  de- 
ceived any  one  who  had  a  proper  conception  of  what 
real  knowledge  was. 

But  in  pursuing  Greek  and  Latin  we  had  ignored 
our  mother  tongue.  We  were  no  more  competent  to 
pass  a  really  searching  examination  in  English  litera- 
ture and  English  composition  than  in  the  languages 
and  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome.  We  were  college 
graduates;  and  yet  how  many  of  us  could  follow  out 
a  line  of  sustained,  close  thought,  expressing  ourselves 
in  clear,  concise  terms  ?  The  faculty  of  doing  this  should 
result  from  a  mastery  of  well  selected  fundamentals. 
The  difficulty  was  that  the  fundamentals  were  not  well 
selected,  and  they  had  never  been  mastered.  They  had 
become  a  tradition.  They  were  studied  no  longer  as 
a  means,  but  as  an  end,  —  the  end  being  to  get  into 
college.  Accordingly,  thirty  years  ago  there  was  no 
real  living  basis  of  a  Harvard  education.  Honest,  solid 
foundations  were  not  laid.  The  superstructure,  such 
as  it  was,  rested  upon  an  empty  formula. 

The  reason  of  all  this  I  could  not  understand  then, 
though  it  is  clear  enough  to  me  now.  I  take  it  to  be  sim- 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  13 

ply  this:  The  classic  tongues  were  far  more  remote 
from  our  world  than  they  had  been  from  the  world  our 
fathers  lived  in.  They  are  much  more  remote  from  the 
world  of  to-day  than  they  were  from  the  world  of  thirty 
years  ago.  The  human  mind,  outside  of  the  cloisters, 
is  occupied  with  other  and  more  pressing  things.  Es- 
pecially is  it  occupied  with  a  class  of  thoughts  —  sci- 
entific thoughts  —  which  do  not  find  their  nutriment 
in  the  remote  past.  They  are  not  in  sympathy  with  it. 
Accordingly,  the  world  turns  more  and  more  from  the 
classics  to  those  other  and  living  sources,  in  which  alone 
it  finds  what  it  seeks.  Students  come  to  college  from 
the  hearthstones  of  the  modern  world.  They  have 
been  brought  up  in  the  new  atmosphere.  They  are 
consequently  more  and  more  disposed  to  regard  the 
dead  languages  as  a  mere  requirement  to  college  ad- 
mission. This  reacts  upon  the  institution.  The  college 
does  not  change,  —  there  is  no  conservatism  I  have 
ever  met,  so  hard,  so  unreasoning,  so  impenetrable, 
as  the  conservatism  of  professional  educators  about 
their  methods !  —  the  college  does  not  change,  it  only 
accepts  the  situation.  The  routine  goes  on,  but  super- 
ficiality is  accepted  as  of  course;  and  so  thirty  years 
ago,  as  now,  a  surface  acquaintance  with  two  dead 
languages  was  the  chief  requirement  for  admission  to 
Harvard;  and  to  acquiring  it,  years  of  school  life  were 
,de  voted.  t 

Nor  in  my  time  did  the  mischief  end  here.  On  the 
contrary,  it  began  here.  As  a  slipshod  method  of  train- 
ing was  accepted  in  those  studies  to  which  the  greatest 
prominence  was  given,  the  same  method  was  accepted 
in  other  studies.  The  whole  standard  was  lowered. 
Thirty  years  ago — I  say  it  after  a  careful  search  through 
my  memory  —  thoroughness  of  training  in  any  real- 


14  THREE   ®  B   K   ADDRESSES 

life  sense  of  the  term  was  unknown  in  those  branches 
of  college  education  with  which  I  came  in  contact. 
Everything  was  taught  as  Latin  and  Greek  were  taught. 
Even  now,  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  have  got  solid,  ex- 
haustive teaching  in  the  class-room,  even  if  I  had  known 
enough  to  want  it.  A  limp  superficiality  was  all  pervasive. 
To  the  best  of  my  recollection  the  idea  of  hard  thorough- 
ness was  not  there.  It  may  be  there  now.  I  hope  it  is. 
And  here  let  me  define  my  position  on  several  points, 
so  that  I  shall  be  misunderstood  only  by  such  as  wil- 
fully misunderstand,  in  order  to  misrepresent.1  With 
such  I  hold  no  argument.  In  the  first  place  I  desire 
to  say  that  I  am  po  believer  in  that  narrow  scientific 
and  technological  training  which  now  and  again  we 
hear  extolled.  A  practical,  and  too  often  a  mere  vulgar, 
money-making  utility  seems  to  be  its  natural  outcome.2 
On  the  contrary,  the  whole  experience  and  observation 
of  my  life  lead  me  to  look  with  greater  admiration,  and 
an  envy  ever  increasing,  on  the  broadened  culture  which 
is  the  true  end  and  aim  of  the  university.  On  this  point 
I  cannot  be  too  explicit;  for  I  should  be  sorry  indeed  if 
anything  I  might  utter  were  construed  into  an  argu- 
ment against  the  most  liberal  education.  There  is  a 
considerable  period  in  every  man's  life,  when  the  best 
thing  he  can  do  is  to  let  his  mind  soak  and  tan  in  the 
vats  of  literature.  The  atmosphere  of  a  university  is 
breathed  into  the  student's  system,  —  it  enters  by  the 
very  pores.  But,  just  as  all  roads  lead  to  Rome,  so  I 
hold  there  may  be  a  modern  road  as  well  as  the  classic 
avenue  to  the  goal  of  a  true  liberal  education.  I  object 
to  no  man's  causing  his  children  to  approach  that  goal 
by  the  old,  the  time-honored  entrance.  On  the  contrary 
I  will  admit  that,  for  those  who  travel  it  well,  it  is  the 
1  Infra,  p.  115.  a  Infra,  pp.  142-3. 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  15 

best  entrance.  But  I  do  ask  that  the  modern  entrance 
should  not  be  closed.  Vested  interests  always  look  upon 
a  claim  for  simple  recognition  as  an  insidious  attempt 
on  their  very  existence,  and  the  advocates  of  an  exclu- 
sively classic  college  education  are  quick  to  interpret 
a  desire  for  modern  learning,  as  a  covert  attack  on 
dead  learning.  I  have  no  wish  to  attack  it,  except  in 
its  spirit  of  selfish  exclusiveness.  I  do  challenge  the  right 
of  the  classicist  to  longer  say  that  by  his  path,  and 
by  his  path  only,  shall  the  university  be  approached.1 
I  would  not  narrow  the  basis  of  liberal  education; 
I  would  broaden  it.  No  longer  content  with  classic 
sources,  I  would  have  the  university  seek  fresh  inspi- 
ration at  the  fountains  of  living  thought;  for  Goethe 
I  hold  to  be  the  equal  of  Sophocles,  and  I  prefer  the 
philosophy  of  Montaigne  to  what  seem  to  me  the  plati- 
tudes of  Cicero. 

Neither,  though  venturing  on  these  comparisons, 
have  I  any  light  or  disrespectful  word  to  utter  of  the 
study  of  Latin  or  of  Greek,  much  less  of  the  classic 
literatures.  While  recognizing  fully  the  benefit  to  be 
derived  from  a  severe  training  in  these  mother  tongues, 
I  fully  appreciate  the  pleasure  those  must  have  who 
enjoy  an  easy  familiarity  with  the  authors  who  yet  live 
in  them.  No  one  admires  —  I  am  not  prepared  to  ad- 
mit that  any  one  can  admire  —  more  than  I  the  subtile, 
indescribable  fineness,  both  of  thought  and  diction 
which  a  thorough  classical  education  gives  to  the 
scholar.2  Mr.  Gladstone  is,  as  Macaulay  was,  a  striking 
case  in  point.  As  much  as  any  one  I  note  and  deplore 
the  absence  of  this  literary  Tower-stamp  in  the  writings 
and  utterances  of  many  of  our  own  authors  and  public 
men.  But  its  absence  is  not  so  deplorable  as  that  dis- 
1  Infra,  p.  146.  2  Infra,  p.  133. 


16  THREE   #  B   K  ADDRESSES 

play  of  cheap  learning  which  made  the  American  ora- 
tion of  thirty  and  fifty  years  ago  a  national  humiliation. 
Even  in  its  best  form  it  was  bedizened  with  classic  tinsel 
which  bespoke  the  vanity  of  the  half-taught  scholar. 
We  no  longer  admire  that  sort  of  thing.  But  among 
men  of  my  own  generation  I  do  both  admire  and  envy 
those  who  I  am  told  make  it  a  daily  rule  to  read  a  little 
of  Homer  or  Thucydides,  of  Horace  or  Tacitus.  I  wish 
I  could  do  the  same;  and  yet  I  must  frankly  say  I 
should  not  do  it  if  I  could.  Life  after  all  is  limited,  and 
I  belong  enough  to  the  present  to  feel  satisfied  that 
I  could  employ  that  little  time  each  day  both  more 
enjoyably  and  more  profitably  if  I  should  devote  it  to 
keeping  pace  with  modern  thought,  as  it  finds  expres- 
sion even  in  the  ephemeral  pages  of  the  despised  re- 
view. Do  what  he  will,  no  man  can  keep  pace  with  that 
wonderful  modern  thought;  and  if  I  must  choose,  — 
and  choose  I  must,  —  I  would  rather  learn  something 
daily  from  the  living  who  are  to  perish,  than  daily  muse 
with  the  immortal  dead.  Yet  for  the  purpose  of  my 
argument  I  do  not  for  a  moment  dispute  the  superiority 
—  I  am  ready  to  say  the  hopeless,  the  unattainable 
superiority  —  of  the  classic  masterpieces.  They  are 
sealed  books  to  me,  as  they  are  to  at  least  nineteen  out 
of  twenty  of  the  graduates  of  our  colleges;  and  we  can 
neither  affirm  nor  deny  that  in  them,  and  in  them  alone, 
are  to  be  found  the  choicest  thoughts  of  the  human 
mind  and  the  most  perfect  forms  of  human  speech. 

All  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question.  We  are 
not  living  in  any  ideal  world.  We  are  living  in  this 
world  of  to-day;  and  it  is  the  business  of  the  college  to 
fit  men  for  it.  Does  she  do  it  ?  As  I  have  said,  my  own 
experience  of  thirty  years  ago  tells  me  that  she  did  not 
do  it  then:   the  facts  being  much  the  same,  I  do  not 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  17 

see  how  she  can  do  it  now.  It  seems  to  me  she  starts 
from  a  radically  wrong  basis.  It  is,  to  use  plain  lan- 
guage, a  basis  of  fetich  worship,  in  which  the  real  and 
practical  is  systematically  sacrificed  to  the  ideal  and 
theoretical. 

To-day,  whether  I  want  to  or  not,  I  must  speak  from 
individual  experience.  Indeed,  I  have  no  other  ground 
on  which  to  stand.  I  am  not  a  scholar;  I  am  not  an 
educator;  I  am  not  a  philosopher:  but  I  submit  that 
in  educational  matters  individual,  practical  experience 
is  entitled  to  some  weight.  Not  one  man  in  ten  thousand 
can  contribute  anything  to  this  discussion  in  the  way 
of  more  profound  views  or  deeper  insight.  Yet  any 
concrete,  actual  experience,  if  it  be  only  simply  and 
directly  told,  may  prove  a  contribution  of  value,  and 
that  contribution  we  all  can  bring.  An  average  college 
graduate,  I  am  here  to  subject  the  college  theories  to 
the  practical  test  of  an  experience  in  the  tussle  of  life. 
Recurring  to  the  simile  with  which  I  began,  the  wrestler 
in  the  games  is  back  at  the  gymnasium.  If  he  is  to  talk 
to  any  good  purpose  he  must  talk  of  himself,  and  how 
he  fared  in  the  struggle.1    It  is  he  who  speaks. 

I  was  fitted  for  college  in  the  usual  way.  I  went  to 
the  far  famed  Boston  Latin  School;  there  I  learned 
the  two  grammars  by  heart.  At  length  I  could  even 
puzzle  out  the  simpler  classic  writings  with  the  aid  of 
a  lexicon,  and  apply  more  or  less  correctly  the  rules 
of  construction.  This,  and  the  other  rudiments  of  what 
we  are  pleased  to  call  a  liberal  education,  took  five 
years  of  my  time.  I  was  fortunately  fond  of  reading, 
and  so  learned  English  myself,  and  with  some  thorough- 
ness. I  say  fortunately,  for  in  our  preparatory  curric- 
ulum no  place  was  found  for  English;  being  a  modern 
1  Infra,  p.  103. 


18  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

language,  it  was  thought  not  worth  studying,  —  as  our 
college  entrance  examination  papers  conclusively 
showed!  We  turned  English  into  bad  enough  Greek, 
but  our  thoughts  were  expressed  in  even  more  abom- 
inable English.  I  then  went  to  college,  —  to  Harvard. 
I  have  already  spoken  of  the  standard  of  instruction, 
so  far  as  thoroughness  was  concerned,  then  prevailing 
here.  Presently  I  was  graduated,  and  passed  some 
years  in  the  study  of  the  law.  Thus  far,  as  you  will  see, 
my  course  was  thoroughly  correct.  It  was  the  well 
buoyed-out  course  pursued  by  a  large  proportion  of 
all  graduates  then,  and  the  course  pursued  by  more 
than  a  third  of  them  now.  Then  the  War  of  Secession 
came,  and  swept  me  out  of  a  lawyer's  office  into  a 
cavalry  saddle.  Let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  I  have 
always  felt  under  deep  personal  obligation  to  the  War 
of  Secession.  Returning  presently  to  civil  life,  and  not 
taking  kindly  to  my  profession,  I  endeavored  to  strike 
out  a  new  path,  and  fastened  myself,  not,  as  Mr.  Em- 
erson recommends,  to  a  star,  but  to  the  locomotive- 
engine.  I  made  for  myself  what  might  perhaps  be  called 
a  specialty  in  connection  with  the  development  of  the 
railroad  system.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  I  have 
been  incapacitated  from  properly  developing  my  spe- 
cialty, by  the  sins  of  omission  and  commission  incident 
to  my  college  training.  The  mischief  is  done,  and  so 
far  as  I  am  concerned  is  irreparable.  I  am  only  one 
more  sacrifice  to  the  fetich.  But  I  do  not  propose  to  be 
a  silent  sacrifice.  I  am  here  to-day  to  put  the  respon- 
sibility for  my  failure,  so  far  as  I  have  failed,  where 
I  think  it  belongs,  —  at  the  door  of  my  preparatory 
and  college  education. 

Nor  has  that  incapacity,  and  the  consequent  failure 
to  which  I  have  referred,  been  a  mere  thing  of  imagina- 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  19 

tion  or  sentiment.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been  not 
only  matter-of-fact  and  real,  but  to  the  last  degree 
humiliating.  I  have  not,  in  following  out  my  specialty, 
had  at  my  command  —  nor  has  it  been  in  my  power, 
placed  as  I  was,  to  acquire  —  the  ordinary  tools  which 
an  educated  man  must  have  to  enable  him  to  work 
to  advantage  on  the  developing  problems  of  modern, 
scientific  life.  But  on  this  point  I  feel  that  I  can,  with 
few  words,  safely  make  my  appeal  to  the  members  of 
this  Society. 

Many  of  you  are  scientific  men;  others  are  literary 
men;  some  are  professional  men.  I  believe,  from  your 
own  personal  experience,  you  will  bear  me  out  when 
I  say  that,  with  a  single  exception,  there  is  no  modern 
scientific  study  which  can  be  thoroughly  pursued  in 
any  one  living  language,  even  with  the  assistance  of  all 
the  dead  languages  that  ever  were  spoken.  The  re- 
searches in  the  dead  languages  are  indeed  carried  on 
through  the  medium  of  several  living  languages.  I  have 
admitted  there  is  one  exception  to  this  rule.  That  ex- 
ception is  the  law.  Lawyers  alone,  I  believe,  join  with 
our  statesmen  in  caring  nothing  for  "abroad."  Except 
in  its  more  elevated  and  theoretical  branches,  which 
rarely  find  their  way  into  our  courts,  the  law  is  a  purely 
local  pursuit.  Those  who  follow  it  may  grow  gray  in 
active  practice,  and  yet  never  have  occasion  to  consult 
a  work  in  any  language  but  their  own.  It  is  not  so  with 
medicine  or  theology  or  science  or  art,  in  any  of  their 
numerous  branches,  or  with  government,  or  political 
economy,  or  with  any  other  of  the  whole  long  list.  With 
the  exception  of  law,  I  think  I  might  safely  challenge 
any  one  of  you  to  name  a  single  modern  calling,  either 
learned  or  scientific,  in  which  a  worker  who  is  unable  to 
read  and  write  and  speak  at  least  German  and  French, 


20  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

does  not  stand  at  a  great  and  always  recurring  disad- 
vantage. He  is  without  the  essential  tools  of  his  trade. 
The  modern  languages  are  thus  the  avenues  to  mod- 
ern life  and  living  thought.  Under  these  circumstances, 
what  was  the  position  of  the  college  towards  them 
thirty  years  ago  ?  What  is  its  position  to-day  ?  It  inter- 
vened, and  practically  said  then  that  its  graduates 
should  not  acquire  those  languages  at  that  period  when 
only  they  could  be  acquired  perfectly  and  with  ease. 
It  occupies  the  same  position  still.  It  did,  and  does, 
this  none  the  less  effectually  because  indirectly.  The 
thing  came  about,  as  it  still  comes  about,  in  this  way : 
the  college  fixes  the  requirements  for  admission  to  its 
course;  the  schools  and  the  academies  adapt  them- 
selves to  those  requirements;  the  business  of  those 
preparatory  schools  is  to  get  the  boys  through  their 
examinations,  not  as  a  means,  but  as  an  end.  The  pre- 
paratory schools  are  therefore  all  organized  on  one  plan. 
To  that  plan  there  is  no  exception;  nor  practically  can 
there  be  any  exception.  The  requirements  for  admis- 
sion are  such  that  the  labor  of  preparation  occupies 
fully  the  boy's  study  hours.  He  is  not  overworked,  per- 
haps, but  when  his  tasks  are  done  he  has  no  more 
leisure  than  is  good  for  play;  and  you  cannot  take  a 
healthy  boy  the  moment  he  gets  out  of  school  and  set 
him  down  at  home  before  tutors  in  German  and  French. 
If  you  do,  he  will  soon  cease  to  be  a  healthy  boy;  and 
he  will  not  learn  German  or  French.  Over-education 
is  a  crime  against  youth.  But  Harvard  College  says: 
"We  require  such  and  such  things  for  admission  to  our 
course."  First  and  most  emphasized  among  them  are 
Latin  and  Greek.  The  academies  accordingly  teach 
Latin  and  Greek;  and  they  teach  it  in  the  way  to  secure 
admission  to  the  college.  Hence,  because  of  this  action 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  21 

of  the  college,  the  schools  do  not  exist  in  this  country 
in  which  my  children  can  learn  what  my  experience 
tells  me  it  is  all  essential  they  should  know.  They  can- 
not both  be  fitted  for  college  and  taught  the  modern 
languages.  And  when  I  say  "taught  the  modern  lan- 
guages," I  mean  taught  them  in  the  world's  sense  of 
the  word,  and  not  in  the  college  sense  of  it,  as  practised 
both  in  my  time  and  now.  And  here  let  me  not  be  mis- 
understood, and  confronted  with  examination  papers. 
I  am  talking  of  really  knowing  something.  I  do  not 
want  my  children  to  get  a  smattering  knowledge  of 
French  and  of  German,  such  a  knowledge  as  was  and 
now  is  given  to  boys  of  Latin  and  Greek;  but  I  do  want 
them  to  be  taught  to  write  and  to  speak  those  languages, 
as  well  as  to  read  them,  —  in  a  word,  so  to  master  them 
that  they  will  thereafter  be  tools  always  ready  to  the 
hand.  This  requires  labor.  It  is  a  thing  which  cannot 
be  picked  up  by  the  wayside,  except  in  the  countries 
where  the  languages  are  spoken.  If  academies  in  Amer- 
ica are  to  instruct  in  this  way,  they  must  devote  them- 
selves to  it.  But  the  college  requires  all  that  they  can 
well  undertake  to  do.  The  college  absolutely  insists  on 
Latin  and  Greek. 

Latin  I  will  not  stop  to  contend  over.  That  is  a  small 
matter.  Not  only  is  it  a  comparatively  simple  language, 
but,  apart  from  its  literature,  —  for  which  I  cannot 
myself  profess  any  great  admiration, — it  has  its  mod- 
ern uses.  Not  only  is  it  directly  the  mother  tongue 
of  all  southwestern  Europe,  but  it  has  by  common  con- 
sent been  largely  adopted  in  scientific  nomenclature. 
Hence,  there  are  reasons  why  the  educated  man  should 
have  at  least  an  elementary  knowledge  of  Latin.  That 
knowledge  also  can  be  acquired  with  no  great  degree 
of  labor.    To  master  the  language  would  be  another 


22  THREE  <S>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

matter;  but  in  these  days  few  think  of  mastering  it. 
How  many  students  during  the  last  thirty  years  have 
graduated  from  Harvard  who  could  read  Horace  and 
Tacitus  and  Juvenal,  as  numbers  now  read  Goethe 
and  Mommsen  and  Heine?  If  there  have  been  ten, 
I  do  not  believe  there  have  been  a  score.  This  it  is  to 
acquire  a  language!  A  knowledge  of  its  rudiments  is 
a  wholly  different  thing;  and  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
rudiments  of  Latin  as  a  requirement  for  admission  to 
college  I  am  not  here  to  quarrel.  Not  so  Greek.  The 
study  of  Greek,  and  I  speak  from  the  unmistakable 
result  of  my  own  individual  experience  in  active  life, 
as  well  as  from  that  of  a  long-continued  family  expe- 
rience which  I  shall  presently  give,  —  the  study  of 
Greek  in  the  way  it  is  traditionally  insisted  upon,  as  the 
chief  requirement  to  entering  college,  is  a  positive  edu- 
cational wrong.  It  has  already  wrought  great  individ- 
ual and  general  injury,  and  is  now  working  it.  It  has 
been  productive  of  no  compensating  advantage.  It  is 
a  superstition. 

But  before  going  further  I  wish  to  emphasize  the 
limitations  under  which  I  make  this  statement.  I  would 
not  be  misunderstood.  I  am  speaking  not  at  all  of 
Greek  really  studied  and  lovingly  learned.  Of  that 
there  cannot  well  be  two  opinions.  I  have  already  said 
that  it  is  the  basis  of  the  finest  scholarship.1  I  have 
in  mind  only  the  Greek  traditionally  insisted  upon  as 
a  college  entrance  requirement,  —  the  Greek  learned 
under  compulsion  by  nine  men  at  least  out  of  each 
ten  who  are  graduated.  It  is  that  quarter-acquired 
knowledge,  and  that  only,  of  which  I  insist  that  it  is 
a  superstition,  and  educational  wrong.  Nor  can  it  ever 
be  anything  else.  It  is  a  penalty  on  going  to  college. 
1  Also  infra,  p.  133. 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  23 

I  am  told  that  when  thoroughly  studied  Greek  be- 
comes a  language  delightfully  easy  to  learn.  I  do  not 
know  how  this  may  be;  but  I  do  know  that  when 
learned  as  a  college  admission  requirement  it  is  most 
difficult,  —  far  more  difficult  than  Latin.  Unlike  Latin, 
also,  Greek,  partially  acquired,  has  no  modern  uses. 
Its  flexibility  it  is  true  has  recommended  it  for  adoption 
as  the  basis  of  much  scientific  nomenclature;  and,  as 
such,  it  has  in  no  small  degree  contributed  to  the 
gradual  formation  of  that  nondescript  but  extremely 
unintelligible  jargon  which  in  the  more  learned  treat- 
ises is  now  the  layman's  stumbling-block.  But,  from 
the  literary  point  of  view,  Greek  is  practically  a  dead 
tongue;  it  bears  no  immediate  relation  to  any  living 
speech  of  value.  Like  all  rich  dialects,  also,  it  is  full  of 
anomalies;  and  accordingly  its  grammar,  the  delight 
of  grammarians,  is  the  despair  of  every  one  else.  When 
I  was  fitted  for  college,  the  study  of  Greek  took  up  at 
least  one  half  of  the  last  three  years  devoted  to  prepara- 
tion. In  memory  it  looms  up  now,  through  the  vista  of 
years,  as  the  one  gigantic  nightmare  of  youth,  —  and 
no  more  profitable  than  nightmares  are  wont  to  be. 
Other  school-day  tasks  sink  into  insignificance  beside 
it.  When  we  entered  college  we  had  all  of  us  the  merest 
superficial  knowledge  of  the  language,  —  a  know- 
ledge measured  by  the  ability  to  read  at  sight  a  portion 
of  Xenophon,  a  little  of  Herodotus,  and  a  book  or  two 
of  the  Iliad.  It  was  just  enough  to  enable  us  to  meet 
the  requirements  of  the  examination.  In  all  these  re- 
spects, my  inquiries  lead  me  to  conclude  that  what  was 
true  then  is  even  more  true  now.  In  the  vast  majority 
of  cases  this  study  of  Greek  was  looked  upon  by  parent 
and  student  as  a  mere  incident  to  admission;  and  the 
instructor  taught  it  as  such.    It  was  never  supposed 


24  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

for  an  instant  that  it  would  be  followed  up.  On  the 
contrary,  if  it  was  thought  of  at  all,  instead  of  rather 
taken  as  a  matter  of  course,  it  was  thought  of  very 
much  as  a  similar  amount  of  physical  exercise  with 
dumb-bells  or  parallel-bars  might  be  thought  of,  —  as 
a  thing  to  be  done  as  best  it  might,  and  there  an  end. 
As  soon  as  possible  after  entering  college  the  study 
was  abandoned  forever,  and  the  little  that  had  been 
acquired  faded  rapidly  away  from  the  average  stu- 
dent's mind.  I  have  now  forgotten  the  Greek  alphabet, 
and  I  cannot  readily  make  out  all  the  Greek  letters  if 
I  open  my  Homer.  Such  has  been  the  be-all  and  the 
end-all  of  the  tremendous  labor  of  my  school  days. 

But  I  now  come  to  what  in  plain  language  I  cannot 
but  call  the  educational  cant  of  this  subject.  I  am  told 
that  I  ignore  the  severe  intellectual  training  I  got  in 
learning  the  Greek  grammar,  and  in  subsequently  ap- 
plying its  rules;  that  my  memory  then  received  an 
education  which,  turned  since  to  other  matters,  has 
proved  invaluable  to  me;  that  accumulated  experience 
shows  that  this  training  can  be  got  equally  well  in  no 
other  way;  that,  beyond  all  this,  even  my  slight  con- 
tact with  the  Greek  masterpieces  has  left  with  me  a 
subtile  but  unmistakable  residuum,  impalpable  per- 
haps, but  still  there,  and  very  precious;  that,  in  a  word, 
I  am  what  is  called  an  educated  man,  which,  but  for 
my  early  contact  with  Greek,  I  would  not  be. 

It  was  Dr.  Johnson,  I  believe,  who  once  said,  "Let 
us  free  our  minds  from  cant;"  and  all  this,  with  not 
undue  bluntness  be  it  said,  is  unadulterated  nonsense. 
The  fact  that  it  has  been  and  will  yet  be  a  thousand 
times  repeated,  cannot  make  it  anything  else.  In  the 
first  place,  I  very  confidently  submit,  there  is  no  more 
mental  training  in  learning  the  Greek  grammar  by 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  25 

heart  than  in  learning  by  heart  any  other  equally  dif- 
ficult and,  to  a  boy,  unintelligible  book.  As  a  mere 
work  of  memorizing,  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Rea- 
son would  be  at  least  as  good.  In  the  next  place,  un- 
intelligent memorizing  is  at  best  a  most  questionable 
educational  method.  For  one,  I  utterly  disbelieve  in  it. 
It  never  did  me  anything  but  harm;  and  learning  by 
heart  the  Greek  grammar  did  me  harm,  —  a  great 
deal  of  harm.  While  I  was  doing  it,  the  observing 
and  reflective  powers  lay  dormant;  indeed,  they  were 
systematically  suppressed.  Their  exercise  was  resented 
as  a  sort  of  impertinence.  We  boys  stood  up  and  re- 
peated long  rules,  and  yet  longer  lists  of  exceptions  to 
them;  and  it  was  drilled  into  us  that  we  were  not  there 
to  reason,  but  to  rattle  off  something  written  on  the 
blackboard  of  our  minds.  The  faculties  we  had  in 
common  with  the  raven  were  thus  cultivated  at  the 
expense  of  that  apprehension  and  reason  which,  Shake- 
speare tells  us,  makes  man  like  the  angels  and  God. 
I  infer  this  memory- culture  is  yet  in  vogue;  for  only 
yesterday,  as  I  sat  at  the  Commencement  table  with 
one  of  the  younger  and  more  active  of  the  professors 
of  the  college,  he  told  me  that  he  had  no  difficulty  with 
his  students  in  making  them  commit  to  memory;  they 
were  well  trained  in  that.  But  when  he  called  on  them 
to  observe  and  infer,  then  his  troubles  began.1  They 
had  never  been  led  in  such  a  path.  It  was  the  old,  old 
story,  —  a  lamentation  and  an  ancient  tale  of  wrong. 
There  are  very  few  of  us  who  were  educated  a  genera- 
tion ago  who  cannot  now  stand  up  and  glibly  recite 
long  extracts  from  the  Greek  grammar;  sorry  am  I  to 
say  it,  but  these  extracts  are  with  most  of  us  all  we 
have  left  pertaining  to  that  language.  But,  as  not  many 
1  Infra,  pp.  120,  123,  125. 


26  THREE  <S>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

of  us  followed  the  stage  as  a  calling,  this  power  of 
rapidly  learning  a  part  has  proved  but  of  questionable 
value.  It  is  true,  the  habit  of  correct  verbal  memorizing 
will  probably  enable  its  fortunate  possessor  to  get  off 
many  an  apt  quotation  at  the  dinner-table,  and  far 
be  it  from  me  to  detract  from  that  much  longed-for 
accomplishment;  but,  after  all,  the  college  professes  to 
fit  its  students  for  life  rather  than  for  its  dinner-tables, 
and  in  life  a  happy  knack  at  quotations  is  in  the  long 
run  an  indifferent  substitute  for  the  power  of  close 
observation,  and  correct  inference  from  it.  To  be  able 
to  follow  out  a  line  of  exact,  sustained  thought  to  a 
given  result  is  invaluable.1  It  is  a  weapon  which  all 
who  would  engage  successfully  in  the  struggle  of  mod- 
ern life  must  sooner  or  later  acquire;  and  they  are  apt 
to  succeed  just  in  the  degree  they  acquire  it.  In  my 
youth  we  were  supposed  to  acquire  it  through  the 
blundering  application  of  rules  of  grammar  in  a  lan- 
guage we  did  not  understand.2  The  training  which 
ought  to  have  been  obtained  in  physics  and  mathe- 
matics was  thus  sought  for  long,  and  in  vain,  in  Greek. 
That  it  was  not  found,  is  small  cause  for  wonder  now. 
And  so,  looking  back  from  this  standpoint  of  thirty 
years  later,  and  thinking  of  the  game  which  has  now 
been  lost  or  won,  I  silently  listen  to  that  talk  about 
"the  severe  intellectual  training,"  in  which  a  parrot- 
like  memorizing  did  its  best  to  degrade  boys  to  the 
level  of  learned  dogs. 

Finally,  I  come  to  the  great  impalpable-essence-and- 
precious-residuum  theory,  —  the  theory  that  a  know- 
ledge of  Greek  grammar,  and  the  having  puzzled 
through  the  Anabasis  and  three  books  of  the  Iliad, 
infuses  into  the  boy's  nature  the  imperceptible  spirit 
1  Infra,  p.  131.  a  Infra,  pp.  124,  125. 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  27 

of  Greek  literature,  which  will  appear  in  the  results 
of  his  subsequent  work,  just  as  manure,  spread  upon 
a  field,  appears  in  the  crop  which  that  field  bears.  But 
to  produce  results  on  a  field,  manure  must  be  labori- 
ously worked  into  its  soil,  and  made  a  part  of  it;  and 
only  when  it  is  so  worked  in,  and  does  become  a  part  of 
it,  will  it  produce  its  result.  You  cannot  haul  manure 
up  and  down  and  across  a  field,  cutting  the  ground 
into  deep  ruts  with  the  wheels  of  your  cart,  while  the 
soil  just  gets  a  smell  of  what  is  in  the  cart,  and  then 
expect  to  get  a  crop.  Yet  even  that  is  more  than  we 
did,  and  are  doing,  with  Greek.  We  trundle  a  single 
wheelbarrow-load  of  Greek  up  and  down  and  across 
the  boy's  mind ;  and  then  we  clasp  our  hands,  and  cant 
about  a  subtile  fineness  and  impalpable  but  very  pre- 
cious residuum!  All  we  have  in  fact  done  is  to  teach 
the  boy  to  mistake  means  for  ends  and  to  make  a  sys- 
tem of  superficiality. 

Nor  in  this  matter  am  I  speaking  unadvisedly  or 
thoughtlessly.  My  own  experience  I  have  given.  For 
want  of  a  rational  training  in  youth  I  cannot  do  my 
chosen  work  in  life  thoroughly.  The  necessary  tools 
are  not  at  my  command ;  it  is  too  late  for  me  to  acquire 
them,  or  to  learn  familiarly  to  handle  them;  the  mis- 
chief is  done.  I  have  also  referred  to  my  family  expe- 
rience. Just  as  the  wrestler  in  the  gymnasium,  after 
describing  how  he  had  himself  fared  in  the  games, 
might,  in  support  of  his  conclusions,  refer  to  his  father 
and  grandfather,  who,  likewise  trained  in  the  gymna- 
sium, had  been  noted  athletes  in  their  days,  so  I,  com- 
ing here  and  speaking  from  practical  experience,  and 
practical  experience  alone,  must  cite  that  experience 
where  I  best  can  find  it.  I  can  find  it  best  at  home.  So 
I  appeal  to  a  family  experience  which  extends  through 


28  THREE   3>  B   K   ADDRESSES 

'  nearly  a  century  and  a  half.    It  is  worth  giving  in  this 
connection;  and  very  much  to  the  point. 

I  do  not  think  I  exceed  proper  limits  when  I  say  that 
the  family  of  which  I  am  a  member  has,  for  more  than 
a  hundred  years,  held  its  own  with  the  average  of  Har- 
vard graduates.  Indeed,  those  representing  it  through 
three  consecutive  generations  were  rather  looked  upon 
as  typical  scholars  in  politics.  They  all  studied  Greek 
as  a  requirement  to  admission  to  college.  In  their 
subsequent  lives  they  were  busy  men.  Without  being 
purely  literary  men,  they  wrote  a  great  deal;  indeed, 
the  pen  was  rarely  out  of  their  hands.  They  all  occu- 
pied high  public  position.  They  mixed  much  with  the 
world.  Now  let  us  see  what  their  actual  experience  in 
life  was:  how  far  did  their  college  requirements  fit 
them  for  it?  Did  they  fit  them  any  better  than  they 
have  fitted. me?   I  begin  with  John  Adams. 

John  Adams  graduated  in  the  class  of  1755,  —  a 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  years  ago.  We  have  his  own 
testimony  on  the  practical  value  to  him  of  his  Greek 
learning,  expressed  in  an  unguarded  moment,  and  in 
a  rather  comical  way.  I  shall  give  it  presently.  Mean- 
while, after  graduation  John  Adams  was  a  busy  man 
as  a  school-teacher,  a  lawyer  and  a  patriot,  until  at 
the  age  of  forty-two  he  suddenly  found  himself  on  the 
Atlantic,  accredited  to  France  as  the  representative 
of  the  struggling  American  colonies.  French  was  not 
a  requirement  in  the  Harvard  College  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, even  to  the  modest  extent  in  which  it  is  a  require- 
ment now.  Greek  was.  But  they  did  not  talk  Greek 
in  the  diplomatic  circles  of  Europe  then  any  more  than 
they  now  talk  it  in  the  Harvard  recitation-rooms;  and 
in  advising  John  Adams  of  his  appointment,  James 
Lovell  had  expressed  the  hope  that  his  correspondent 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  29 

would  not  allow  his  "partial  defect  in  the  language" 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  acceptance.  He  did  not;  but 
at  forty-two,  with  his  country's  destiny  on  his  shoul- 
ders, John  Adams  stoutly  took  his  grammar  and  phrase- 
book  in  hand,  and  set  himself  to  master  the  rudiments 
of  that  living  tongue  which  was  the  first  and  most 
necessary  tool  for  use  in  the  work  before  him.  What 
he  afterwards  went  through  —  the  anxiety,  the  hu- 
miliation, the  nervous  wear  and  tear,  the  disadvantage 
under  which  he  struggled  and  bore  up  —  might  best 
be  appreciated  by  some  one  who  had  fought  for  his 
life  with  one  arm  disabled.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  de- 
scribe it. 

But  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  ordinary  educated 
man  set  a  higher  value  on  dead  learning  than  even 
our  college  professors  do  now;  and,  in  spite  of  his 
experience,  no  one  thought  more  of  it  than  did  John 
Adams.  So  when  in  his  closing  years  he  founded  an 
academy,  he  especially  provided,  bowing  low  before 
the  fetich,  that  "a  schoolmaster  should  be  procured, 
learned  in  the  Greek  and  Roman  languages,  and,  if 
thought  advisable,  the  Hebrew;  not  to  make  learned 
Hebricians,  but  to  teach  such  young  men  as  choose  to 
learn  it  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  the  rudiments  of  the 
Hebrew  grammar,  and  the  use  of  the  Hebrew  gram- 
mar and  lexicon,  that  in  after  life  they  may  pursue  the 
study  to  what  extent  they  please."  Instead  of  taking 
a  step  forward,  the  old  man  actually  took  one  back- 
wards. And  he  went  on  to  develop  the  following  happy 
educational  theory,  which  if  properly  considered  in  the 
light  of  the  systematic  superficiality  of  thirty  years  ago, 
to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  shows  how  our 
methods  had  then  deteriorated.  What  was  taught  was 
at  least  to  be  taught  thoroughly;  and,  as  I  have  con- 


"      OF    PHE U 

'DIVERSITY 

OF 


SO  THREE   0  B   K  ADDRESSES 

fessed,  I  have  forgotten  the  Greek  letters.  "I  hope," 
he  wrote,  "the  future  masters  will  not 'think  me  too 
presumptuous,  if  I  advise  them  to  begin  their  lessons 
in  Greek  and  Hebrew  by  compelling  their  pupils  to 
write  over  and  over  again  copies  of  the  Greek  and  He- 
brew alphabets,  in  all  their  variety  of  characters,  until 
they  are  perfect  masters  of  those  alphabets  and  char- 
acters. This  will  be  as  good  an  exercise  in  chirography 
as  any  they  can  use,  and  will  stamp  those  alphabets  and 
characters  upon  their  tender  minds  and  vigorous  memo- 
ries so  deeply  that  the  impression  will  never  wear  out, 
and  will  enable  them  at  any  period  of  their  future  lives 
to  study  those  languages  to  any  extent  with  great  ease." 

This  was  fetich-worship,  pure  and  simple.  It  was 
written  in  the  year  1822.  But  practice  is  sometimes 
better  than  theory,  and  so  I  turn  back  a  little  to  see 
how  John  Adams's  practice  squared  with  his  theory. 
In  his  own  case,  did  the  stamping  of  those  Greek 
characters  upon  his  tender  mind  and  vigorous  mem- 
ory enable  him  at  a  later  period  "to  study  that  lan- 
guage to  any  extent  with  great  ease"?  Let  us  see. 
On  the  9th  of  July,  1813,  the  hard  political  wrangles 
of  their  two  lives  being  over,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
second  war  with  Great  Britain,  I  find  John  Adams 
thus  writing  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  —  and  I  must  con- 
fess to  very  much  preferring  John  Adams  in  his  easy 
letter- writing  undress,  to  John  Adams  on  his  dead- 
learning  stilts;  he  seems  a  wiser,  a  more  genuine  man. 
He  is  answering  a  letter  from  Jefferson,  who  had  in 
the  shades  of  Monticello  been  reviving  his  Greek: 

"  Lord !  Lord !  what  can  I  do  with  so  much  Greek  ? 
When  I  was  of  your  age,  young  man,  that  is,  seven  or 
eight  years  ago  [he  was  then  nearly  seventy-nine,  and 
his  correspondent  a  little  over  seventy],  I  felt  a  kind 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  31 

of  pang  of  affection  for  one  of  the  flames  of  my  youth, 
and  again  paid  my  addresses  to  Isocrates  and  Diony- 
sius  Halicarnassensis,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  I  collected  all  my 
lexicons  and  grammars,  and  sat  down  to  Ilepi  o-wtfe'o-ews 
ovofidrvs.  In  this  way  I  amused  myself  for  some  time, 
but  I  found  that  if  I  looked  a  word  to-day,  in  less  than 
a  week  I  had  to  look  it  again.  It  was  to  little  better 
purpose  than  writing  letters  on  a  pail  of  water." 

This  certainly  is  not  much  like  studying  Greek  "to 
any  extent  with  great  ease."  But  I  have  not  done  with 
John  Adams  yet.  A  year  and  one  week  later  I  find  him 
again  writing  to  Jefferson.  In  the  interval,  Jefferson 
seems  to  have  read  Plato,  sending  at  last  to  John 
Adams  his  final  impressions  of  that  philosopher.  To 
this  letter,  on  the  16th  of  July,  1814,  his  correspondent 
replies  as  follows: 

"I  am  very  glad  you  have  seriously  read  Plato,  and 
still  more  rejoiced  to  find  that  your  reflections  upon 
him  so  perfectly  harmonize  with  mine.  Some  thirty 
years  ago  I  took  upon  me  the  severe  task  of  going 
through  all  his  works.  With  the  help  of  two  Latin 
translations,  and  one  English  and  one  French  trans- 
lation, and  comparing  some  of  the  most  remarkable 
passages  with  the  Greek,  I  labored  through  the  tedious 
toil.  My  disappointment  was  very  great,  my  aston- 
ishment was  greater,  and  my  disgust  was  shocking. 
Two  things  only  did  I  learn  from  him.  First,  that 
Franklin's  ideas  of  exempting  husbandmen  and  mari- 
ners, etc.,  from  the  depredations  of  war  were  borrowed 
from  him;  and,  second,  that  sneezing  is  a  cure  for  the 
hiccough.  Accordingly,  I  have  cured  myself  and  all  my 
friends  of  that  provoking  disorder,  for  thirty  years, 
with  a  pinch  of  snuff."  l 

1  John  Adams's  Works,  vol.  x,  pp.  49, 102. 


32  THREE  <£  B   K  ADDRESSES 

As  a  sufficiently  cross-examined  witness  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Greek  literature,  I  think  that  John  Adams  may 
now  quit  the  stand. 

More  fortunate  than  his  father,  John  Quincy  Adams 
passed  a  large  part  of  his  youth  in  Europe.  There,  in 
the  easy  way  a  boy  does,  he  picked  up  those  living 
languages  so  inestimably  valuable  to  him  in  that  diplo- 
matic career  which  subsequently  was  no  less  useful  to 
his  country  than  it  was  honorable  to  himself.  Presently 
he  came  home,  and,  acquiring  his  modicum  of  Greek, 
graduated  at  Harvard  in  the  class  of  1788.  Then 
followed  his  long  public  life,  stretching  through  half 
a  century.  I  would,  for  the  sake  of  my  argument,  give 
much  could  I  correctly  weigh  what  he  owed  during 
that  public  life  to  the  living  languages  picked  up  in 
Europe,  against  what  he  owed  to  the  dead  languages 
he  acquired  at  Harvard.  Minister  at  The  Hague,  at 
Berlin,  and  at  St.  Petersburg,  negotiator  at  Ghent,  his 
knowledge  of  living  tongues  enabled  him  to  initiate 
the  diplomatic  movement  which  restored  peace  to  his 
country.  At  St.  Petersburg  he  at  least  was  not  tongue- 
tied.  Returning  to  America,  for  eight  years  he  was  the 
head  of  the  State  Department,  and  probably  the  single 
member  of  the  Government  who,  without  the  assistance 
of  an  interpreter,  could  hold  ready  intercourse  with 
the  representatives  of  other  lands.  Meanwhile,  so  far 
as  Greek  was  concerned,  I  know  he  never  read  it;  and 
I  suspect  that,  labor-loving  as  he  was,  he  never  could 
read  it.  He  could  with  the  aid  of  a  lexicon  puzzle  out 
a  phrase  when  it  came  in  his  way,  but  from  original 
sources  he  knew  little  or  nothing  of  Greek  literature. 
It  would  have  been  better  for  him  if  he  had  also  dropped 
his  Latin.  I  have  already  said  that  the  display  of  cheap 
learning  made  the  American  oration  of  fifty  years  ago 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  33 

a  national  humiliation ;  it  was  bedizened  with  classic  tin- 
sel. In  this  respect  John  Quincy  Adams  shared  to  the 
full  in  the  affectation  of  his  time.  Ready,  terse,  quick 
at  parry  and  thrust  in  his  native  tongue,  speaking 
plainly  and  directly  to  the  point,  with  all  his  resources 
at  his  immediate  command,  —  I  think  I  may  say  he 
never  met  his  equal  in  debate.  Yet  when  in  lectures 
and  formal  orations  he  mounted  the  classic  high-horse 
and  modelled  himself  on  Demosthenes  and  Cicero, 
he  became  a  poor  imitator.  As  an  imitator  he  was  as 
bad  as  Chatham,  when  he  essayed  a  eulogy  of  Wolfe. 
More  could  not  be  said.  That  much  he  owed  to  Har- 
vard College,  and  its  little  Latin  and  less  Greek. 

But  I  must  pass  on  to  the  third  generation.  Fortu- 
nate like  his  father,  Charles  Francis  Adams  spent  some 
years  of  his  boyhood  in  Europe,  and  in  many  countries 
of  Europe;  so  that  at  six  years  old  he  could  talk,  as  a 
child  talks,  in  no  less  than  six  different  tongues.  Greek 
was  not  among  them.  Returning  to  America  he,  too, 
fitted  for  Harvard,  and  in  so  doing  made  a  bad  ex- 
change; for  he  easily  got  rid  forever  of  the  German 
speech,  and  with  much  labor  acquired  in  place  thereof 
the  regulation  allowance  of  Greek.  He  was  graduated 
in  the  class  of  1825.  After  graduation,  having  more 
leisure  than  his  father  or  grandfather,  —  that  is,  not 
being  compelled  to  devote  himself  to  an  exacting  pro- 
fession, —  he,  as  the  phrase  goes,  "kept  up  his  Greek." 
That  is,  he  occupied  himself  daily,  for  an  hour  or  so, 
with  the  Greek  masterpieces,  puzzling  them  labori- 
ously out  with  the  aid  of  grammar  and  lexicon.  He 
never  acquired  any  real  familiarity  with  the  tongue; 
for  I  well  remember  that  when  my  turn  at  the  tread- 
mill came,  and  he  undertook  to  aid  me  at  my  lessons, 
we  were  very  much  in  the  case  of  a  boy  who  was  nearly 


34  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

blind,  being  led  by  a  man  who  could  only  very  indis- 
tinctly see.  Still  he  for  years  "kept  up  his  Greek," 
and  was  on  the  examining-committee  of  the  College. 
And  now,  looking  back,  I  realize  at  what  a  sad  cost  to 
himself  he  did  this;  for  in  doing  it  he  lost  the  step  of 
his  own  time.  Had  he  passed  those  same  morning 
hours  in  keeping  himself  abreast  with  modern  thought 
in  those  living  tongues  he  had  acquired  in  his  infancy, 
and  allowed  his  classics  to  rest  undisturbed  on  his 
library  shelves,  he  would  have  been  a  wiser,  a  happier, 
and  a  far  more  useful  man.  But  modern  thought 
(apart  from  politics),  modern  science,  modern  ro- 
mance and  modern  poetry  soon  ceased  to  have  any 
charm  for  him.  Nevertheless  he  did  not  wholly  lose  the 
more  useful  lessons  of  his  infancy.  For  years,  as  I  have 
said,  he  officiated  on  the  Greek  examining-committee 
of  the  College;  but  at  last  the  time  came  when  his 
country  needed  a  representative  on  a  board  of  inter- 
national arbitration.  Then  he  laid  his  lexicon  and 
grammar  aside  forever,  and  the  almost  forgotten  French 
of  his  boyhood  was  worth  more  —  a  thousandfold 
more  —  to  him  and  his  country  than  all  the  concen- 
trated results  of  the  wasted  leisure  hours  of  his  ma- 
turer  life. 

I  come  now  to  the  fourth  generation,  cutting  deep 
into  the  second  century.  My  father  had  four  sons.  We 
were  all  brought  up  on  strict  traditional  principles, 
the  special  family  experience  being  carefully  ignored. 
We  went  to  the  Latin  schools,  and  there  wasted  the 
best  hours  of  our  youth  over  the  Greek  grammar,  — 
hours  during  which  we  might  have  been  talking  French 
and  German,  —  and  presently  we  went  to  Harvard. 
When  we  got  there  we  dropped  Greek,  and  with  one 
voice  we  have  all  deplored  the  irreparable  loss  we  sus- 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  35 

tained  in  being  forced  to  devote  to  it  that  time  and 
labor  which,  otherwise  applied,  would  have  produced 
results  now  invaluable.  One  brother,  since  a  Professor 
at  Harvard,  whose  work  here  was  not  without  results, 
wiser  than  the  rest,  went  abroad  after  graduation,  and 
devoted  two  years  to  there  supplying,  imperfectly  and 
with  great  labor,  the  more  glaring  deficiencies  of  his 
college  training.  Since  then  the  post-graduate  know- 
ledge thus  acquired  has  been  to  him  an  indispensable 
tool  of  his  trade.  Sharing  in  the  modern  contempt  for 
a  superficial  learning,  he  has  not  wasted  his  time  over 
dead  languages  which  he  could  not  hope  thoroughly 
to  master.  Another  of  the  four,  now  a  Fellow  of  the 
University,  has  certainly  made  no  effort  to  keep  up  his 
Greek.  When,  however,  his  sons  came  forward,  a  fifth 
generation  to  fit  for  college,  looking  back  over  his  own 
experience  as  he  watched  them  at  their  studies,  his 
eyes  were  opened.  Then  in  language  certainly  not 
lacking  in  picturesque  vigor,  but  rather  profane  than 
either  classical  or  sacred,  he  expressed  to  me  his  ma- 
ture judgment.  While  he  looked  with  inexpressible 
self-contempt  on  that  worthless  smatter  of  the  classics 
which  gave  him  the  title  of  an  educated  man,  he  de- 
clared that  his  inability  to  follow  modern  thought  in 
other  tongues,  or  to  meet  strangers  on  the  neutral 
ground  of  speech,  had  been  and  was  to  him  a  source 
of  lifelong  regret  and  the  keenest  mortification.  In 
obedience  to  the  stern  behest  of  his  Alma  Mater  he 
then  proceeded  to  sacrifice  his  children  to  the  fetich. 
My  own  experience  I  have  partly  given.  It  is  un- 
necessary for  me  to  repeat  it.  Speaking  in  all  modera- 
tion, I  will  merely  say  that,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge, 
the  large  amount  of  my  youthful  time  devoted  to  the 
study  of  Greek,  both  in  my  school  and  college  life,  was 


36  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

time  as  nearly  as  possible  thrown  away.  I  suppose 
I  did  get  some  discipline  out  of  that  boyish  martyr- 
dom. I  should  have  got  some  discipline  out  of  an  equal 
number  of  hours  spent  on  a  treadmill.  But  the  dis- 
cipline I  got  for  the  mind  out  of  the  study  of  Greek, 
so  far  as  it  was  carried  and  in  the  way  in  which  it  was 
pursued  in  my  case,  was  very  much  such  discipline  as 
would  be  acquired  on  the  treadmill  for  the  body.  I  do 
not  think  it  was  any  higher  or  any  more  intelligent. 
Yet  I  studied  Greek  with  patient  fidelity;  and  there 
are  not  many  modern  graduates  who  can  say,  as  I  can, 
that  they  have,  not  without  enjoyment,  read  the  Iliad 
through  in  the  original  from  its  first  line  to  its  last. 
But  I  read  it  exactly  as  some  German  student,  toiling 
at  English,  might  read  Shakespeare  or  Milton.  As  he 
slowly  puzzled  them  out,  an  hundred  lines  in  an  hour, 
what  insight  would  he  get  into  the  pathos,  the  music 
and  the  majesty  of  Lear  or  of  the  Paradise  Lost? 
What  insight  did  I  get  into  Homer?  And  then  they 
actually  tell  me  to  my  face  that  unconsciously,  through 
the  medium  of  a  grammar,  a  lexicon  and  Felton's 
Greek  Reader,  the  subtile  spirit  of  a  dead  literature 
was  and  is  infused  into  a  parcel  of  boys! 

So  much  for  what  my  Alma  Mater  gave  me.  In  these 
days  of  repeating-rifles,  she  sent  me  and  my  class- 
mates out  into  the  strife  equipped  with  shields  and 
swords  and  javelins.  We  were  to  grapple  with  living 
questions  through  the  medium  of  dead  languages. 
It  seems  to  me  I  have  heard,  somewhere  else,  of  a 
child's  cry  for  bread  being  answered  with  a  stone.  But 
on  this  point  I  do  not  like  publicly  to  tell  the  whole 
of  my  own  experience.  It  has  been  too  bitter,  too 
humiliating.  Representing  American  educated  men 
in  the  world's  industrial  gatherings,  I  have  occupied 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  37 

a  position  of  confessed  inferiority.  I  have  not  been 
the  equal  of  my  peers.  It  was  the  world's  congress  of 
to-day,  and  Latin  and  Greek  were  not  current  money 
there. 

Such  is  a  family  and  individual  experience  covering 
a  century  and  a  half.  With  that  experience  behind 
me,  I  have  sons  of  my  own  coming  forward.  I  want 
them  to  go  to  college,  —  to  Harvard  College;  but  I  do 
not  want  them  to  go  there  by  the  path  their  fathers 
trod.  It  seems  to  me  that  four  generations  ought  to 
suffice.  Neither  is  my  case  exceptional.  I  am,  on  the 
contrary,  one  of  a  large  class  in  the  community,  very 
many  of  whom  are  more  imbued  than  I  with  the  sci- 
entific and  thorough  spirit  of  the  age.  As  respects  our 
children,  the  problem  before  us  is  a  simple  one;  and 
yet  one  very  difficult  of  practical  solution.  We  want 
no  more  classical  veneer.  Whether  on  furniture  or  in 
education,  we  do  not  admire  veneer.  Either  impart 
to  our  children  the  dead  languages  thoroughly  or  the 
living  languages  thoroughly;  or,  better  yet,  let  them 
take  their  choice  of  either.  This  is  just  what  the  col- 
leges do  not  do.  On  the  contrary,  Harvard  stands 
directly  in  the  way  of  what  a  century-and-a-half's 
experience  tells  me  is  all- important. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  way  in  which  this 
comes  about.  It  was  Polonius,  I  think,  who  suggested 
to  his  agent  that  he  should  "by  indirections  find 
directions  out;"  and  that  is  what  Harvard  does  with 
our  youth.  Economically  speaking,  the  bounty  or 
premium  put  upon  Greek  is  so  heavy  that  it  amounts 
to  a  prohibition  of  other  things.  To  fit  a  boy  for  college 
is  now  no  small  task.  The  doing  so  is  a  specialty  in 
itself;  for  the  standard  has  been  raised,  and  the  list 
of  requirements  increased.    Candidates  for  admission 


38  THREE  <l>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

to  the  Freshman  class  must  know  a  little  of  a  good 
many  things.  To  acquire  this  multifarious  fractional 
knowledge  takes  a  great  deal  of  time.  To  impart  it  in 
just  the  proper  quantities,  and  in  such  a  way  that  it 
shall  all  be  on  hand  and  ready  for  exhibition  on  a 
given  day,  affords  the  teachers  of  the  academies,  as  I 
am  given  to  understand,  all  the  occupation  they  crave. 
The  requirements  being  thus  manifold,  it  is  a  case 
of  expressio  unius,  exclusio  alterius.  Accordingly,  one 
thing  crowding  another  out,  there  does  not  exist,  so 
far  as  I  am  able  to  learn,  a  single  school  in  the  country 
which  will  at  the  same  time  prepare  my  sons  for  college, 
and  for  what  I,  by  long  and  hard  experience,  perfectly 
well  know  to  be  the  life  actually  before  them.  The 
simple  fact  is  that  the  College  Faculty  tell  me  that  I  do 
not  know  what  a  man  really  needs  to  enable  him  to 
do  the  educated  work  of  modern  life  well;  and  I,  who 
for  twenty  years  have  been  engaged  in  that  work,  can 
only  reply  that  the  members  of  the  Faculty  are  labor- 
ing under  a  serious  misapprehension  as  to  what  life  is. 
It  is  a  something  made  up,  not  of  theories,  but  of  facts, 
—  and  of  confoundedly  hard  facts,  at  that. 

The  situation  has  its  comical  side,  and  is  readily 
suggestive  of  sarcasm.  Unfortunately,  it  has  its  serious 
side  also.  It  is  not  so  very  easy  to  elude  the  fetich.  Of 
course,  where  means  are  ample  it  is  possible  to  im- 
provise an  academy  through  private  instruction.  But 
the  contact  with  his  equals  in  the  class  and  on  the  play- 
ground is  the  best  education  a  boy  ever  gets,  —  better 
than  a  rudimentary  knowledge  of  Greek,  even.  Ac- 
cording to  my  observation,  to  surround  children  with 
tutors  at  home  is  simply  to  emasculate  them.  Then, 
again,  they  can  be  sent  to  Europe  and  to  the  schools 
there.  But  that  way  danger  lies.  For  myself,  whatever 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  89 

my  children  are  not,  I  want  them  to  be  Americans. 
If  they  go  to  Europe,  I  must  go  with  them;  but  as  the 
people  of  modern  Europe  do  not  speak  Greek  and 
Latin,  in  which  learned  tongues  alone  I  am  theoret- 
ically at  home,  a  sojourn  of  some  years  in  a  foreign 
academic  town,  though  as  a  remedy  it  may  be  effect- 
ive, yet  at  the  time  of  life  at  which  those  of  my  gen- 
eration have  now  unhappily  arrived,  it  partakes  also 
of  the  heroic. 

Such  is  the  dilemma  in  which  I  find  myself  placed. 
Such  is  the  common  dilemma  in  which  all  those  are 
placed  who  see  and  feel  the  world  as  I  have  seen  and 
felt  it.  We  are  the  modernists  and  a  majority;  but  in 
the  eyes  of  the  classicists  we  are,  I  fear,  a  vulgar  and 
contemptible  majority.  Yet  I  cannot  believe  that  this 
singular  condition  of  affairs  will  last  a  great  While 
longer.  The  measure  of  reform  seems  very  simple  and 
wholly  reasonable.  The  modernist  does  not  ask  to 
have  German  and  French  substituted  for  Greek  and 
Latin  as  the  basis  of  all  college  education.  I  know 
that  he  is  usually  represented  as  seeking  this  change, 
and  of  course  I  shall  be  represented  as  seeking  it. 
This,  however,  is  merely  one  of  those  wilful  misre- 
presentations to  which  the  more  disingenuous  de- 
fenders of  vested  interests  always  have  recourse.  So 
far  from  demanding  that  Greek  and  Latin  be  driven 
out,  and  French  and  German  substituted  for  them, 
we  do  not  even  ask  that  the  modern  languages  be  put 
on  an  equal  footing  with  the  classic.  Recognizing,  as 
every  intelligent  modernist  must,  that  the  command 
of  several  languages,  besides  that  which  is  native  to 
him,  is  essential  to  a  liberally  educated  man,  —  recog- 
nizing this  fundamental  fact,  those  who  feel  as  I  feel 
would  by  no  means  desire  that  students  should  be 


40  THREE  <E>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

admitted  to  the  college  who  could  pass  their  examina- 
tions in  German  and  French,  instead  of  Greek  and 
Latin.  We  are  willing  —  at  least  I  am  willing  —  to 
concede  a  preference,  and  a  great  preference,  to  the 
dead  over  the  living,  to  the  classic  over  the  modern. 
All  I  would  ask,  would  be  that  the  preference  afforded 
to  the  one  should  no  longer,  as  now,  amount  to  the 
practical  prohibition  of  the  other.  I  should  not  even 
wish,  for  instance,  that,  on  the  present  basis  of  real 
familiarity,  Greek  should  count  against  French  and 
German  combined  as  less  than  three  counts  against 
one.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  should  afford  a  sufficient 
bounty  on  Greek.  In  other  words,  the  modernist  asks 
of  the  college  to  change  its  requirements  for  admis- 
sion only  in  this  wise:  Let  it  say  to  the  student  who 
presents  himself,  "In  what  languages,  besides  Latin 
and  English,  —  those  are  required  of  all,  —  in  what 
other  languages  —  Hebrew,  Greek,  German,  French, 
Spanish,  or  Italian  —  will  you  be  examined  ?*'  If  the 
student  replies,  "In  Greek,"  so  be  it,  —  let  him  be 
examined  in  that  alone;  and  if,  as  now,  he  can  stumble 
through  a  few  lines  of  Xenophon  or  Homer,  and  ren- 
der some  simple  English  sentences  into  questionable 
Greek,  let  that  suffice.  As  respects  languages,  let  him 
be  pronounced  fitted  for  a  college  course.  If,  however, 
instead  of  offering  himself  in  the  classic,  he  offers  him- 
self in  the  modern  tongues,  then,  though  no  mercy  be 
shown  him,  let  him  at  least  no  longer  be  turned  con- 
temptuously away  from  the  college  doors;  but,  in- 
stead of  the  poor,  quarter-knowledge,  ancient  and 
modern,  now  required,  let  him  be  permitted  to  pass 
such  an  examination  as  will  show  that  he  has  so  mas- 
tered two  languages  besides  his  own  that  he  can  go 
forward  in  his  studies,  using  them  as  working  tools.  Re- 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  41 

member  that,  though  we  are  modernists,  we  are  yet 
your  fellow  students;  and  so  we  pray  you  to  let  us 
and  our  children  sit  at  the  common  table  of  the  Alma 
Mater,  even  though  it  be  below  the  salt. 

That  an  elementary  knowledge  of  one  dead  language 
should  count  as  equal  to  a  thorough  familiarity  with 
two  living  languages  ought,  I  submit,  to  be  accepted 
as  a  sufficient  educational  bounty  on  the  former,  and 
brand  of  inferiority  on  the  latter.  The  classicist  should 
in  reason  ask  for  no  more.  He  should  not  insist  that  his 
is  the  only,  as  well  as  the  royal,  road  to  salvation. 
Meanwhile  the  modernist  would  be  perfectly  satisfied 
with  recognition  on  any  terms.  He  most  certainly  does 
not  wish  to  see  modern  languages,  or  indeed  any  other 
subject,  taught  in  preparatory  schools  as  Greek  was 
taught  in  them  when  we  were  there,  or  as  it  is  taught 
in  them  now,  —  I  mean  as  a  mere  college  require- 
ment. Believing,  as  the  scientific  modernist  does,  that 
a  little  knowledge  is  a  contemptible  thing,  he  does  not 
wish  to  see  the  old  standard  of  examinations  in  the 
dead  languages  any  longer  applied  to  the  living.  On 
the  contrary,  we  wish  to  see  the  standard  raised;  and 
we  know  perfectly  well  that  it  can  be  raised.  If  a  youth 
wants  to  enter  college  on  the  least  possible  basis  of 
solid  acquirement,  by  all  means  let  Greek,  as  it  is,  be 
left  open  for  him.  If,  however,  he  takes  the  modern 
languages,  let  him  do  so  with  the  distinct  understand- 
ing that  he  must  master  those  languages.  After  he  en- 
ters the  examination-room  no  word  should  be  uttered 
except  in  the  language  in  which  he  is  there  to  be  ex- 
amined. 

Consider  now,  for  a  moment,  what  would  be  the 
effect  on  the  educational  machinery  of  the  country  of 
this  change  in  the  college  requirements.   The  modern, 


42  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

scientific,  thorough  spirit  would  at  once  assert  itself. 
Up  to  this  time  it  has,  by  that  tradition  and  authority 
which  are  so  powerful  in  things  educational,  been  held 
in  subjection.  Remove  the  absolute  protection  which 
hitherto  has  been  and  now  is  accorded  to  Greek,  and 
many  a  parent  would  at  once  look  about  for  a  modern, 
as  opposed  to  a  classical,  academy.  To  meet  the  col- 
lege requirements,  that  academy  would  have  to  be 
one  in  which  no  English  word  would  be  spoken  in  the 
higher  recitation-rooms.  Every  school  exercise  would 
be  conducted  by  American  masters  proficient  in  the 
foreign  tongues.  The  scholars  would  have  to  learn 
languages  by  hearing  them  and  talking  them.  The 
natural  law  of  supply  and  demand  would  then  assert 
itself.  The  demand  is  now  a  purely  artificial  one ;  but 
the  supply  of  Greek  and  Latin,  such  as  it  is,  comes 
in  response  to  it.  Once  let  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
German  and  French  and  Spanish  be  as  good  tender 
at  the  college-door  as  a  fractional  knowledge  of  either 
of  the  first  two  of  those  languages  and  of  Greek  now 
is,  and  the  academies  would  supply  that  thorough 
knowledge  also.  If  the  present  academies  did  not  sup- 
ply it,  other  and  better  academies  would. 

But  I  have  heard  it  argued  that  in  order  to  attain 
the  ends  I  have  in  view  no  such  radical  change  as  that 
involved  in  dropping  Greek  from  the  list  of  college 
requirements  is  at  all  necessary.  The  experience  of 
Montaigne  is  cited,  told  in  Montaigne's  charming 
language.  It  is  then  asserted  that  the  compulsory  study 
of  Greek  has  not  been  discontinued  in  foreign  colleges; 
and  yet,  as  we  all  know,  the  students  of  those  colleges 
have  an  ever  increasing  mastery  of  the  living  tongues. 
I  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  this  branch  of  the  dis- 
cussion.   I  do  not  profess  to  be  informed  as  to  what 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  43 

the  universities  of  other  lands  have  done.  As  I  have 
repeatedly  said,  I  have  nothing  of  value  to  contribute 
to  this  debate  except  practical,  individual  experience. 
So,  in  answer  to  the  objections  I  have  just  stated,  I 
hold  it  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to  reply  that  we  have 
to  deal  with  America,  and  not  with  Germany  or  France 
or  Great  Britain.  The  educational  and  social  condi- 
tions are  not  the  same  here  as  in  those  countries.  Our 
home-life  is  different;  our  schools  are  different;  wealth 
is  otherwise  distributed;  the  machinery  for  special 
instruction  which  is  found  there  cannot  be  found  here. 
However  it  may  be  in  England  or  in  Prussia,  however 
it  may  hereafter  be  in  this  country,  our  children  can- 
not now  acquire  foreign  languages,  living  or  dead,  in 
the  easy,  natural  way,  —  in  the  way  in  which  Mon- 
taigne acquired  them.  The  appliances  do  not  exist. 
Consequently  there  is  not  room  in  one  and  the  same 
preparatory  school  for  both  the  modernist  and  the 
classicist.  Under  existing  conditions  the  process  of 
acquiring  the  languages  is  too  slow  and  laborious; 
the  one  crowds  out  the  other.  In  the  university  it  is 
not  so.  The  two  could  from  the  beginning  there  move 
side  by  side;  under  the  elective  system  they  do  so  al- 
ready, during  the  last  three  years  of  the  course.  I 
would  put  no  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  scholar  whose 
tastes  turn  to  classic  studies.  On  the  contrary,  I  would 
afford  him  every  assistance,  and  no  longer  clog  and 
encumber  his  progress  by  tying  him  to  a  whole  class- 
room of  others  whose  tastes  run  in  opposite  directions, 
or  in  no  direction  at  all.1  Indeed,  it  is  curious  to  think 
how  much  the  standard  of  classic  requirements  might 
be  raised,  were  not  the  better  scholars  weighted  down 
by  the  presence  of  the  worse.  But  while  welcoming 
1  Infra,  pp.  146,  147. 


44  THREE  3>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

the  classicist,  why  not  also  welcome  the  modernist? 
Why  longer  say,  "By  this  one  avenue  only  shall  the 
college  be  approached  "  ?  The  university  is  a  part  of 
the  machinery  of  the  world  in  which  we  live;  and,  as 
I  have  already  more  than  once  intimated,  the  college 
student  does  not  get  very  far  into  that  world,  after 
leaving  these  classic  shades,  before  he  is  made  to 
realize  that  it  is  a  world  of  facts,  and  very  hard  facts. 
As  one  of  those  facts,  I  would  like  to  suggest  that  there 
are  but  two,  or  at  most  three,  languages  spoken  on 
these  continents  in  which  ours  is  the  dominant  race. 
There  is  a  saying  that  a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead 
lion;  and  the  Spanish  tongue  is  what  the  Greek  is 
not,  —  a  very  considerable  American  fact. 

Here  I  might  stop;  and  here,  perhaps,  I  ought  to 
stop.  I  am,  however,  unwilling  to  do  so  without  a 
closing  word  on  one  other  topic.  For  the  sake  of  my 
argument,  and  to  avoid  making  a  false  issue,  I  have 
in  everything  I  have  said,  as  between  the  classic  and 
modern  languages,  fully  yielded  the  preference  to  the 
former.  I  have  treated  a  mastery  of  the  living  tongues 
simply  as  an  indispensable  tool  of  trade,  or  medium  of 
speech  and  thought.  It  was  a  thing  which  the  scholar, 
the  professional  man  and  the  scientist  of  to-day  must 
have,  or  be  unequal  to  his  work.  I  have  made  no 
reference  to  the  accumulated  literary  wealth  of  the 
modern  tongues,  much  less  compared  their  master- 
pieces with  those  of  Greece  or  Rome.  Yet  I  would  not 
have  it  supposed  that  in  taking  this  view  of  the  matter 
I  express  my  full  belief.  On  the  contrary,  I  shrewdly 
suspect  that  there  is  in  what  are  called  the  educated 
classes,  both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  a  simu- 
lated admiration  of  many  of  *he  accepted  masterpieces 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  45 

in  Greek  or  in  Latin  which  is  based  largely  on  tradi- 
tion and  credulity.  Established  articles  of  the  orthodox 
literary  creed,  that  is  jealously  prized  as  part  of  the 
body  of  the  classics,  which  if  published  to-day,  in  Ger- 
man or  French  or  English,  would  fail  to  excite  even 
a  passing  notice.  There  are  immortal  poets,  whose  im- 
mortality, my  mature  judgment  tells  me,  is  wholly  due 
to  the  fact  that  they  wrote  two  thousand  years  ago. 
Even  a  dead  language  cannot  wholly  veil  extreme 
tenuity  of  thought  and  fancy;  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson  were  in  their  day 
at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  reputation  even  of  Plato. 

In  any  event,  this  thing  I  hold  to  be  indisputable: 
of  those  who  study  the  classic  languages,  not  one  in 
a  hundred  ever  acquires  that  familiarity  with  them 
which  enables  him  to  judge  whether  a  given  literary 
composition  is  a  masterpiece  or  not.  Take  your  own 
case  and  your  own  language  for  instance.  For  my- 
self, I  can  freely  say  that  it  has  required  thirty  years 
of  incessant  and  intelligent  practice,  with  eye  and  ear 
and  tongue  and  pen,  to  give  me  that  ready  mastery  of 
the  English  language  which  enables  me  thoroughly 
to  appreciate  the  more  subtile  beauties  of  the  English 
literature.  I  fancy  that  it  is  in  our  native  tongue  alone, 
or  in  some  tongue  in  which  we  have  acquired  as  per- 
fect a  facility  as  we  have  in  our  native  tongue,  that 
we  ever  detect  those  finer  shades  of  meaning,  that 
happier  choice  of  words,  that  more  delicate  flavor 
of  style,  which  alone  reveal  the  master.  Many  men 
here,  for  instance,  who  cannot  speak  French  or  Ger- 
man fluently,  can  read  French  and  German  authors 
more  readily  than  any  living  man  can  read  Greek,  or 
than  any,  outside  of  a  few  college  professors,  can  read 
Latin;  yet  they  cannot  see  in  the  French  or  German 


40  THREE  <J>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

masterpieces  what  those  can  see  there  who  are  to  the 
language  born.  The  familiarity,  therefore,  with  the 
classic  tongues  which  would  enable  a  man  to  appre- 
ciate the  classic  literatures  in  any  real  sense  of  the 
term  is  a  thing  which  cannot  be  generally  imparted. 
Even  if  the  beauties  which  are  claimed  to  be  there 
are  there,  they  must  perforce  remain  concealed  from 
all,  save  a  very  few,  outside  of  the  class  of  professional 
scholars. 

But  are  those  transcendent  beauties  really  there? 
I  greatly  doubt.  I  shall  never  be  able  to  judge  for  my- 
self, for  a  mere  lexicon-and-grammar  acquaintance  with 
a  language  I  hold  to  be  no  acquaintance  at  all.  But 
we  can  judge  a  little  of  what  we  do  not  know  by  what 
we  do  know,  and  I  find  it  harder  and  harder  to  believe 
that  in  practical  richness  the  Greek  literature  equals  the 
German,  or  the  Latin  the  French.  Leaving  practical 
richness  aside,  are  there  in  the  classic  masterpieces 
any  bits  of  literary  workmanship  which  take  preced- 
ence of  what  may  be  picked  out  of  Shakespeare  and 
Milton  and  Bunyan  and  Clarendon  and  Addison  and 
Swift  and  Goldsmith  and  Gray  and  Burke  and  Gib- 
bon and  Shelley  and  Burns  and  Macaulay  and  Car- 
lyle  and  Hawthorne  and  Thackeray  and  Tennyson  ? 
If  there  are  any  such  transcendent  bits,  I  can  only 
say  that  our  finest  scholars  have  failed  most  lament- 
ably in  their  attempts  at  rendering  them  into  English. 

For  myself,  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  species  of 
sanctity  which  has  now,  ever  since  the  revival  of 
learning,  hedged  the  classics,  is  destined  soon  to  dis- 
appear. Yet  it  is  still  strong;  indeed,  it  is  about  the 
only  patent  of  nobility  which  has  survived  the  levelling 
tendencies  of  the  age.  A  man  who  at  some  period  of 
his  life  has  studied  Latin  and  Greek  is  an  educated 


A  COLLEGE  FETICH  47 

man;  he  who  has  not  done  so  is  only  a  self-taught 
man.  Not  to  have  studied  Latin,  irrespective  of  any 
present  ability  to  read  it,  is  accounted  a  thing  to  be 
ashamed  of;  to  be  unable  to  speak  French  is  merely 
an  inconvenience.  I  submit  that  it  is  high  time  this 
superstition  should  come  to  an  end.  I  do  not  profess 
to  speak  with  authority,  but  I  have  certainly  mixed 
somewhat  with  the  world,  its  labors  and  its  literatures, 
through  a  third  of  a  century,  and  in  many  lands ;  and 
I  am  free  to  say,  that,  whether  viewed  as  a  thing  of 
use,  as  an  accomplishment,  as  a  source  of  pleasure,  or 
as  a  mental  training,  I  would  rather  myself  be  familiar 
with  the  German  tongue  and  its  literature  than  be 
equally  familiar  with  the  Greek.  I  would  unhesitatingly 
make  the  same  choice  for  my  child.  What  I  have  said 
of  German  as  compared  with  Greek,  I  will  also  say 
of  French  as  compared  with  Latin.  On  this  last  point 
I  have  no  question.  Authority  and  superstition  apart, 
I  am  indeed  unable  to  see  how  an  intelligent  man, 
having  any  considerable  acquaintance  with  the  two 
literatures,  can,  as  respects  either  richness  or  beauty, 
compare  the  Latin  with  the  French;  while  as  a  worldly 
accomplishment,  were  it  not  for  fetich-worship,  in 
these  days  of  universal  travel  the  man  would  be 
properly  regarded  as  out  of  his  mind  who  preferred 
to  be  able  to  read  the  odes  of  Horace,  rather  than  to 
feel  at  home  in  the  accepted  neutral  language  of  all 
refined  society. 

This  view  of  the  case  is  not  yet  taken  by  the  colleges. 

"The  slaves  of  custom  and  established  mode, 
With  pack-horse  constancy  we  keep  the  road, 
Crooked  or  straight,  through  quags  or  thorny  dells, 
True  to  the  jingling  of  our  leader's  bells." 

And  yet  I  am  practical  and  of  this  world  enough  to 


48  THREE   4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

believe,  that  in  a  utilitarian  and  scientific  age  the  living 
will  not  forever  be  sacrificed  to  the  dead.  The  worship 
even  of  the  classical  fetich  draweth  to  a  close;  and  I 
shall  hold  that  I  was  not  myself  sacrificed  wholly  in 
vain,  if  what  I  have  said  here  may  contribute  to  so 
shaping  the  policy  of  Harvard  that  it  will  not  much 
longer  use  its  prodigious  influence  towards  indirectly 
closing  for  its  students,  as  it  closed  for  me,  the  avenues 
to  modern  life  and  the  fountains  of  living  thought. 


SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A 
STATUE?" 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A 
STATUE?"' 

Whom  doth  the  king  delight  to  honour  ?  that  is  the  question 
of  questions  concerning  the  king's  own  honour.  Show  me 
the  man  you  honour;  I  know  by  that  symptom,  better  than 
by  any  other,  what  kind  of  man  you  yourself  are.  For  you 
show  me  there  what  your  ideal  of  manhood  is;  what  kind 
of  man  you  long  inexpressibly  to  be,  and  would  thank  the 
gods,  with  your  whole  soul,  for  being  if  you  could. 

Who  is  to  have  a  Statue?  means,  Whom  shall  we  con- 
secrate and  set  apart  as  one  of  our  sacred  men?  Sacred; 
that  all  men  may  see  him,  be  reminded  of  him,  and,  by  new 
example  added  to  old  perpetual  precept,  be  taught  what  is 
real  worth  in  man.  Whom  do  you  wish  us  to  resemble  ?  Him 
you  set  on  a  high  column,  that  all  men,  looking  on  it,  may 
be  continually  apprised  of  the  duty  you  expect  from  them. 
—  Thomas  Carlyle,  Latter-Day  Pamphlets.    (1850.) 

At  about  three  o'clock  of  the  afternoon  of  September 
3,  1658,  the  day  of  Worcester  and  of  Dunbar,  and  as 
a  great  tempest  was  wearing  itself  to  rest,  Oliver  Crom- 
well died.  He  died  in  London,  in  the  palace  of  White- 
hall; that  palace  of  the  great  banqueting-hall,  through 
whose  central  window  Charles  I  had  walked  forth  to 
the  scaffold  a  little  less  than  ten  years  before.  A  few 
weeks  later,  "with  a  more  than  regal  solemnity,"  the 
body  of  the  great  Lord  Protector  was  carried  to  West- 
minster Abbey,  and  there  buried  "amongst  Kings." 
Two  years  then  elapsed;  and,  on  the  twelfth  anniver- 

1  Address  delivered  in  Chicago  before  the  University  of  Chicago 
Chapter  of  the  fraternity  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  Tuesday,  June  17, 
1902. 


52  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

sary  of  King  Charles's  execution,  the  remains  of  the 
usurper,  having  been  disinterred  by  a  unanimous  vote 
of  the  Convention  Parliament,  were  hung  at  Tyburn. 
The  trunk  was  then  buried  under  the  gallows,  while 
Cromwell's  head  was  set  on  a  pole  over  the  roof  of 
Westminster  Hall.  Nearly  two  centuries  of  execration 
ensued;  until,  in  the  sixth  generation,  the  earlier  ver- 
dict was  challenged,  and  the  question  at  last  asked: 
"Shall  Cromwell  have  a  statue?"  Cromwell,  the 
traitor,  the  usurper,  the  execrable  murderer  of  the 
martyred  Charles !  At  first,  and  for  long,  the  suggestion 
was  looked  upon  almost  as  an  impiety,  and,  as  such, 
scornfully  repelled.  Not  only  did  the  old  loyal  king- 
worship  of  England  recoil  from  the  thought,  but,  in- 
dignantly appealing  to  the  Church,  it  declared  that  no 
such  distinction  could  be  granted  so  long  as  there  re- 
mained in  the  prayer-book  a  form  of  supplication  for 
"  King  Charles,  the  Martyr,"  and  of  "  praise  and  thanks- 
giving for  the  wonderful  deliverance  of  these  king- 
doms from  the  Great  Rebellion,  and  all  the  other  mis- 
eries and  oppressions  consequent  thereon,  under  which 
they  had  so  long  groaned."  None  the  less,  the  demand 
was  insistent;  and  at  last,  but  only  after  two  full  cen- 
turies had  elapsed  and  a  third  was  well  advanced,  was 
the  verdict  of  1661  reversed.  To-day  the  bronze  effigy 
of  Oliver  Cromwell  —  massive  in  size,  rugged  in  fea- 
ture, characteristic  in  attitude  —  stands  defiantly  in 
the  yard  of  that  Westminster  Hall,  from  a  pole  on  the 
top  of  which,  twelve  score  years  ago,  the  flesh  crumbled 
from  his  skull. 

In  this  dramatic  reversal  of  an  accepted  verdict,  — 
this  complete  revision  of  opinions  once  deemed  settled 
and  immutable,  —  there  is,  I  submit,  a  lesson,  —  an 
academic  lesson.    The  present  occasion  is  essentially 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    53 

educational.  The  Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration,  as  it  is 
called,  is  the  last,  the  crowning  utterance  of  the  college 
year,  and  very  properly  is  expected  to  deal  with  some 
fitting  theme  in  a  kindred  spir.it.  I  propose  to  do  so 
to-day;  but  in  a  fashion  somewhat  exceptional.  The 
phases  of  moral  and  intellectual  growth  through  which 
the  English  race  has  passed  on  the  subject  of  Crom- 
well's statue  afford,  I  submit,  to  the  reflecting  man  an 
educational  study  of  exceptional  interest.  In  the  first 
place  it  was  a  growth  of  two  centuries;  in  the  second 
place  it  marks  the  passage  of  a  nation  from  an  existence 
under  the  traditions  of  feudalism  to  one  under  the  prin- 
ciples of  self-government;  finally,  it  illustrates  the  grad- 
ual development  of  that  broad  spirit  of  tolerance  which, 
coming  with  time  and  study,  measures  the  men  and 
events  of  the  past  independently  of  the  prejudices  and 
passions  which  obscure  and  distort  the  immediate 
vision. 

We,  too,  as  well  as  the  English,  have  had  our  "  Great 
Rebellion."  It  came  to  a  dramatic  close  thirty-seven 
years  since;  as  theirs  came  to  a  close  not  less  dramatic 
some  seven  times  thirty-seven  years  since.  We,  also, 
as  they  in  their  time,  formed  our  contemporaneous 
judgments  and  recorded  our  verdicts,  assumed  to  be 
irreversible,  of  the  men,  the  issues  and  the  events  of 
the  great  conflict;  and  those  verdicts  and  judgments, 
in  our  case  as  in  theirs,  will  unquestionably  be  revised, 
modified,  and  in  not  a  few  cases  wholly  reversed.  Bet- 
ter knowledge,  calmer  reflection,  and  a  more  judicial 
frame  of  mind  come  with  the  passage  of  the  years;  in 
time  passions  subside,  prejudices  disappear,  truth  as- 
serts itself.  In  England  this  process  has  been  going  on 
for  over  two  centuries  and  a  half,  with  what  result 
Cromwell's  statue  stands  as  proof.   We  live  in  another 


54  THREE  <I>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

age  and  a  different  environment;  and,  as  fifty  years 
of  Europe  out-measure  in  their  growth  a  cycle  of 
Cathay,  so  I  hold  one  year  of  twentieth  century  Amer- 
ica works  more  progress  in  thought  than  thirty-seven 
years  of  Britain  during  the  interval  between  its  Great 
Rebellion  and  ours.  We  who  took  active  part  in  the 
Civil  War  have  not  yet  wholly  vanished  from  the  stage; 
the  rear  guard  of  the  Grand  Army,  we  linger.  To-day 
is  separated  from  the  death  of  Lincoln  by  the  same 
number  of  years  only  which  separated  "the  Glorious 
Revolution  of  1688"  from  the  execution  of  Charles 
Stuart;  yet  to  us  it  is  already  given  to  look  back  on  the 
events  of  which  we  were  a  part  through  a  perspective 
equal  to  that  through  which  the  Victorian  Englishman 
looks  back  on  the  men  and  events  of  the  Common- 
wealth. 

I  propose  here  and  now  so  to  do.    Reverting  to  my 
text — "Shall  Cromwell  have  a  Statue" — and  reading 
that  text  in  the  gloss  of  Carlyle's  Latter-Day  Pamphlet 
utterance,  I  quote  you  Horace's  familiar  precept. 
"  Mutato  nomine,  de  te 
'  Fabula  narratur," 

and  ask  abruptly,  "  Shall  Robert  E.  Lee  have  a  Statue  ?  " 
I  propose  also  to  offer  to  your  consideration  some 
reasons  why  he  should,  and,  assuredly,  will  have  one, 
if  not  now,  then  presently. 

Shortly  after  Lee's  death,  in  October,  1870,  leave 
was  asked  in  the  United  States  Senate  by  Mr.  McCreery, 
of  Kentucky,  to  introduce  a  Joint  Resolution  provid- 
ing for  the  return  of  the  estate  and  mansion  of  Arling- 
ton to  the  family  of  the  deceased  Confederate  Com- 
mander-in-chief. In  view  of  the  use  which  had  then 
already  been  made  of  Arlington  as  a  military  cemetery, 
this  proposal,  involving,  as  it  necessarily  did,  a  re- 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    55 

moval  of  the  dead,  naturally  led  to  warm  debate.  The 
proposition  was  one  not  to  be  considered.  If  a  defect 
in  the  title  of  the  Government  existed,  it  must  in  some 
way  be  cured,  as,  subsequently,  it  was  cured.  But  I 
call  attention  to  the  debate  because  Charles  Sumner, 
then  a  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  participated  in 
it,  using  the  following  language:  "Eloquent  Senators 
have  already  characterized  the  proposition  and  the 
traitor  it  seeks  to  commemorate.  I  am  not  disposed  to 
speak  of  General  Lee.  It  is  enough  to  say  he  stands 
high  in  the  catalogue  of  those  who  have  imbrued  their 
hands  in  their  country's  blood.  I  hand  him  over  to  the 
avenging  pen  of  History."  This  was  when  Lee  had 
been  just  two  months  dead;  but,  three  quarters  of  a 
century  after  the  Protector's  skull  had  been  removed 
from  over  the  roof  of  Westminster  Hall,  Pope  wrote  in 
similar  spirit: 

"See  Cromwell,  damn'd  to  everlasting  fame;" 

and,  sixteen  years  later,  —  four  fifths  of  a  century 
after  Cromwell's  disentombment  at  Westminster  and 
reburial  at  Tyburn,  —  a  period  from  the  death  of  Lee 
equal  to  that  which  will  have  elapsed  in  1950,  Gray 
wrote  of  the  Stoke  Pogis  churchyard  — 

"Some  mute  inglorious  Milton  here  may  rest, 
Some  Cromwell  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood." 

And  now,  a  century  and  a  half  later,  Cromwell's  statue 
looms  defiantly  up  in  front  of  the  Parliament  House. 
When,  therefore,  an  appeal  is  in  such  cases  made  to 
the  "avenging  pen  of  History,"  it  is  well  to  bear  this 
instance  in  mind,  while  recalling  perchance  that  other 
line  of  a  greater  than  Pope,  or  Gray,  or  Sumner  — 
"Thus  the  whirligig  of  time  brings  in  his  revenges." 
Was  then  Robert  E.  Lee  a  "traitor"  —  was  he  also 


56  THREE   4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

guilty  of  his  "country's  blood"?  These  questions  I 
propose  now  to  discuss.  I  am  one  of  those  who,  in  other 
days,  was  arrayed  in  the  ranks  which  confronted  Lee; 
one  of  those  whom  Lee  baffled  and  beat,  but  who, 
finally,  baffled  and  beat  Lee.  As  one  thus  formerly 
lined  up  against  him,  these  questions  I  propose  to  dis- 
cuss in  the  calmer  and  cooler,  and  altogether  more 
reasonable  light  which  comes  to  most  men,  when  a 
whole  generation  of  the  human  race  lies  buried  be- 
tween them  and  the  issues  and  actors  upon  which  we 
undertake  to  pass. 

Was  Robert  E.  Lee  a  traitor  ?  Technically,  I  think 
he  was  indisputably  a  traitor  to  the  United  States; 
for  a  traitor,  as  I  understand  it  technically,  is  one  guilty 
of  the  crime  of  treason;  or,  as  the  Century  Dictionary 
puts  it,  violating  his  allegiance  to  the  chief  authority 
of  the  State;  while  treason  against  the  United  States 
is  specifically  defined  in  the  Constitution  as  "levying 
war"  against  it,  or  "giving  their  enemies  aid  and  com- 
fort." That  Robert  E.  Lee  did  levy  war  against  the 
United  States  can,  I  suppose,  no  more  be  denied  than 
that  he  gave  "aid  and  comfort"  to  its  enemies.  This 
technically;  but,  in  history,  there  is  treason  and  trea- 
son, as  there  are  traitors  and  traitors.  And,  further- 
more, if  Robert  E.  Lee  was  a  traitor,  so  also,  and 
indisputably,  were  George  Washington,  Oliver  Crom- 
well, John  Hampden,  and  William  of  Orange.  The 
list  might  be  extended  indefinitely;  but  these  will  suf- 
fice. There  can  be  no  question  that  every  one  of  those 
named  violated  his  allegiance,  and  gave  aid  and  com- 
fort to  the  enemies  of  his  sovereign.  Washington  fur- 
nishes a  precedent  at  every  point.  A  Virginian  like  Lee, 
he  was  also  a  British  subject;  he  had  fought  under  the 
British  flag,  as  Lee  had  fought  under  that  of  the  United 


OF 

£iMFC 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    57 

States;  when,  in  1776,  Virginia  seceded  from  the  Brit- 
ish Empire,  he  "went  with  his  State,"  just  as  Lee  went 
with  it  eighty-five  years  later;  subsequently  Washing- 
ton commanded  armies  in  the  field  designated  by  those 
opposed  to  them  as  "rebels,"  and  whose  descendants 
now  glorify  them  as  "the  rebels  of  '76,"  much  as  Lee 
later  commanded,  and  at  last  surrendered,  much 
larger  armies,  also  designated  "rebels"  by  those  they 
confronted.  Except  in  their  outcome,  the  cases  were, 
therefore,  precisely  alike;  and  logic  is  logic.  It  con- 
sequently appears  to  follow,  that,  if  Lee  was  a  traitor, 
Washington  was  also.  It  is  unnecessary  to  institute 
similar  comparisons  with  Cromwell,  Hampden  and 
William  of  Orange.  No  defence  can  in  their  cases  be 
made.  Technically,  one  and  all,  they  undeniably  were 
traitors. 

But  there  are,  as  I  have  said,  traitors  and  traitors,  — 
Catilines,  Arnolds  and  Gorgeis,  as  well  as  Cromwells, 
Hampdens  and  Washingtons.  To  reach  any  satisfac- 
tory conclusion  concerning  a  candidate  for  "everlast- 
ing fame,"  —  whether  to  praise  him  or  to  damn  him, 
—  enroll  him  as  saviour,  as  martyr,  or  as  criminal,  — 
it  is,  therefore,  necessary  still  further  to  discriminate. 
The  cause,  the  motive,  the  conduct,  must  be  passed 
in  review.  Did  turpitude  anywhere  attach  to  the  orig- 
inal taking  of  sides,  or  to  subsequent  act?  Was  the 
man  a  self-seeker?  Did  low  or  sordid  motives  impel 
him  ?  Did  he  seek  to  aggrandize  himself  at  his  coun- 
try's cost  ?   Did  he  strike  with  a  parricidal  hand  ? 

These  are  grave  questions;  and,  in  the  case  of  Lee, 
their  consideration  brings  us  at  the  threshold  face  to 
face  with  issues  which  have  perplexed  and  divided 
the  country  since  the  day  the  United  States  became 
a  country.    They  perplex  and  divide  historians  now. 


58  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

Legally,  technically,  —  the  moral  and  humanitarian 
aspects  of  the  issue  wholly  apart,  —  which  side  had 
the  best  of  the  argument  as  to  the  rights  and  the  wrongs 
of  the  case  in  the  great  debate  which  led  up  to  the  Civil 
War?     Before  entering,  however,  on  this  well-worn 

—  I  might  say,  this  threadbare  —  theme,  as  I  find  my- 
self compelled  in  briefest  way  to  do,  there  is  one  pre- 
liminary very  essential  to  be  gone  through  with.  A 
species  of  moral  purgation.  Bearing  in  mind  Dr.  John- 
son's advice  to  Boswell,  on  a  certain  memorable  occa- 
sion, we  should  at  least  try  to  clear  our  minds  of  cant. 
Many  years  ago,  but  only  shortly  before  his  death, 
Richard  Cobden  said  in  one  of  his  truth-telling  deliv- 
erances to  his  Rochdale  constituents,  —  "I  really  be- 
lieve I  might  be  Prime  Minister.  If  I  would  get  up 
and  say  you  are  the  greatest,  the  wisest,  the  best,  the 
happiest  people  in  the  world,  and  keep  on  repeating 
that,  I  don't  doubt  but  what  I  might  be  Prime  Min- 
ister. I  have  seen  Prime  Ministers  made  in  my  expe- 
rience precisely  by  that  process."  The  same  great 
apostle  of  homely  sense,  on  another  occasion  bluntly 
remarked  in  a  similar  spirit  to  the  House  of  Commons, 

—  "We  generally  sympathise  with  everybody's  rebels 
but  our  own."  In  both  these  respects  I  submit  we 
Americans  are  true  descendants  from  the  Anglo-Saxon 
stock;  and  nowhere  is  this  more  unpleasantly  appar- 
ent than  in  any  discussion  which  may  arise  of  the 
motives  which  actuated  those  of  our  countrymen  who 
did  not  at  the  time  see  the  issues  involved  in  our  Civil 
War  as  we  saw  them.  Like  those  Cobden  addressed, 
we  are  prone  to  glorify  our  ancestors  and,  incidentally, 
ourselves,  and  we  do  not  particularly  care  to  give  ear  to 
what  we  are  pleased  to  term  unpatriotic,  and,  at  times, 
even  treasonable,  talk.    In  other  words,  and  in  plain, 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    59 

unpalatable  English,  our  minds  are  saturated  with  self- 
complacent  cant.  Only  in  the  case  of  others,  remote 
in  space  or  time,  do  we  see  things  as  they  really  are. 
Then,  ceasing  to  be  complacent,  we  are  nothing  unless 
critical  and,  usually,  shocked.  So,  when  it  comes  to 
rebellions,  we,  like  Cobden's  Englishmen,  are  wont 
almost  invariably  to  sympathize  with  everybody's 
rebels  but  our  own.  Our  souls  go  forth  at  once  to 
Celt,  Pole,  Hungarian,  Boer  and  Hindoo:  but,  when 
we  are  concerned,  language  quite  fails  us  in  which 
adequately  to  depict  the  moral  turpitude  which  must 
actuate  Confederate  or  Filipino  who  rises  in  resistance 
against  what  we  are  pleased  really  to  consider,  as  well 
as  call,  the  best  and  most  beneficent  government  the 
world  has  yet  been  permitted  to  see,  —  Our  Govern- 
ment !  This,  I  submit,  is  cant  —  pure,  self-complacent 
cant;  and  at  the  threshold  of  discussion  we  had  best 
free  our  minds  of  it,  wholly,  if  we  can;  if  not  wholly, 
then  in  so  far  as  we  can.  Philip  the  Second  of  Spain, 
when  he  directed  his  crusade  in  the  name  of  God, 
Church  and  Government,  against  William  of  Orange, 
indulged  in  it  in  quite  as  good  faith  as  we;  and  as  for 
Charles  "  the  Martyr"  and  the  "sainted"  Laud,  for 
two  centuries  after  Cromwell's  head  was  stuck  on  a 
pole,  all  England  every  Sunday  lamented  in  sackcloth 
and  ashes  the  wrongs  inflicted  by  sacrilegious  hands 
on  those  most  assuredly  well7meaning  rulers  and  men. 
All  depends  on  the  point  of  view;  and  during  our  own 
Civil  War,  while  we  unceasingly  denounced  the  wilful 
wickedness  of  those  who  bore  parricidal  arms  against 
the  one  immaculate  authority  yet  given  the  eye  of 
man  to  look  upon,  the  leading  newspaper  of  the  world 
was  referring  to  us  in  perfect  good  faith  "as  an  insen- 
sate and  degenerate  people."     An  English  member  of 


60  THREE  <£  B  K  ADDRESSES 

Parliament,  speaking  at  the  same  time  in  equally  good 
faith,  declared  that,  throughout  the  length  and  breadth 
of  Great  Britain,  public  sentiment  was  almost  unani- 
mously on  the  side  of  "the  Southerners,"  —  as  ours 
was  on  the  side  of  the  Boers,  —  because  our  "rebels" 
were  "fighting  against  one  of  the  most  grinding,  one  of 
the  most  galling,  one  of  the  most  irritating  attempts  to 
establish  tyrannical  government  that  ever  disgraced  the 
history  of  the  world." 

Upon  the  correctness  or  otherwise  of  these  judgments 
I  do  not  care  to  pass.  They  certainly  cannot  be  recon- 
ciled. The  single  point  I  make  is  that  they  were,  when 
made,  the  expression  of  views  honestly  and  sincerely 
entertained .  We  sympathize  with  Great  Britain 's  rebels ; 
Great  Britain  sympathized  with  our  rebels.  Our  rebels 
in  1862,  as  theirs  in  1900,  sincerely  believed  they  were 
resisting  an  iniquitous  attempt  to  deprive  them  of 
their  rights,  and  to  establish  over  them  a  "grinding," 
a  "galling,"  and  an  "irritating"  "tyrannical  govern- 
ment." We  in  1861,  as  Great  Britain  in  1898,  and 
Charles  "the  Martyr"  and  Philip  of  Spain  some  cen- 
turies earlier,  fully  believed  that  we  were  engaged  in 
God's  work  while  we  trod  under  foot  the  "rebel"  and 
the  "traitor."  Presently,  as  distance  lends  a  more 
correct  perspective,  and  things  are  seen  in  their  true 
proportions,  we  will  get  perhaps  to  realize  that  our 
case  furnishes  no  exception  to  the  general  rule;  and 
that  we,  too,  like  the  English,  "generally  sympathize 
with  everybody's  rebels  but  our  own."  Justice  may 
then  be  done. 

Having  entered  this  necessary,  if  somewhat  hope- 
less caveat,  let  us  address  ourselves  to  the  question  at 
issue.  I  will  state  it  again.  Legally  and  technically, — 
not  morally,  again  let  me  say,  and  wholly  irrespective 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    61 

of  humanitarian  considerations, — to  which  side  did  the 
weight  of  argument  incline  during  the  great  debate 
which  led  up  to  the  Civil  War?  The  answer  necessa- 
rily turns  on  the  abstract  right  of  what  we  term  a 
Sovereign  State  to  secede  from  the  Union  at  such  time 
and  for  such  cause  as  may  seem  to  that  State  proper 
and  sufficient.  The  issue  is  settled  now;  irrevocably 
and  for  all  time  decided ;  it  was  not  settled  forty 
years  ago,  and  the  settlement  since  made  has  been  the 
result  not  of  reason,  based  on  historical  evidence,  but 
of  events  and  of  force.  To  pass  a  fair  judgment  on 
the  line  of  conduct  pursued  by  Lee  in  1861,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  go  back  in  thought  and  imagination,  and  see 
things,  not  as  they  are,  but  as  they  were.  If  we  do  so, 
and  accept  the  judgment  of  some  of  the  more  mod- 
ern students  and  investigators  of  history,  —  either 
wholly  unprejudiced  or  with  a  distinct  Union  bias,  — 
it  would  seem  as  if  the  weight  of  argument  falls  into 
what  I  will  term  the  Confederate  scale.  For  instance, 
Professor  Gold  win  Smith,  —  an  Englishman,  a  life- 
long student  of  history,  a  friend  and  advocate  of  the 
Union  during  the  Civil  War,  the  author  of  one  of  the 
most  compact  and  readable  narratives  of  our  national 
life, —  Professor  Smith  has  recently  said,  —  "Few  who 
have  looked  into  the  history  can  doubt  that  the  Union 
originally  was,  and  was  generally  taken  by  the  parties 
to  it  to  be,  a  compact,  dissoluble  perhaps  most  of  them 
would  have  said,  at  pleasure,  dissoluble  certainly  on 
breach  of  the  articles  of  Union."  1  To  a  like  effect,  but 
in  terms  even  stronger,  Mr.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  now 
a  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  has  said,  not  in  a  po- 
litical utterance  but  in  a  work  of  historical  character, 
—  "When  the  Constitution  was  adopted  by  the  votes 
1  Atlantic  Monthly  Magazine  (March,  1902),  vol.  Ixxxix,  p.  305. 


62  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

of  States  at  Philadelphia,  and  accepted  by  the  votes  of 
States  in  popular  conventions,  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
there  was  not  a  man  in  the  country  from  Washington 
and  Hamilton,  on  the  one  side,  to  George  Clinton  and 
George  Mason,  on  the  other,  who  regarded  the  new 
system  as  anything  but  an  experiment  entered  upon  by 
the  States,  and  from  which  each  and  every  State  had 
the  right  peaceably  to  withdraw,  a  right  which  was 
very  likely  to  be  exercised."  ■ 

Here  are  two  explicit  statements  of  the  legal  and 
technical  side  of  the  argument  made  by  authority  to 
which  no  exception  can  be  taken,  at  least  by  those  of 
the  Union  side.  On  them,  and  on  them  alone,  the  case 
for  the  abstract  right  of  secession  might  be  rested,  and 
we  could  go  on  to  the  next  stage  of  the  discussion. 

I  am  unwilling,  however,  so  to  do.  The  issue  in- 
volved is  still  one  of  interest,  and  I  am  not  disposed 
to  leave  it  on  the  mere  dictum  of  two  authorities,  how- 
ever eminent.  In  the  first  place,  I  do  not  altogether 
concur  in  their  statement;  in  the  next  place,  this  dis- 
cussion is  a  mere  threshing  anew  of  straw  thrice  al- 
ready threshed,  unless  we  get  at  the  true  inwardness  of 
the  problem  as  contradistinguished  from  its  mere  out- 
ward aspects :  for,  when  it  comes  to  questions  —  polit- 
ical or  moral  —  in  which  human  beings  are  involved, 
metaphysics  are  scarcely  less  to  be  avoided  than  cant; 
alleged  historical  facts  are  apt  to  prove  deceptive;  and 
I  confess  to  grave  suspicions  of  logic.  Old  time  theo- 
logy, for  instance,  with  its  pitiless  reasoning,  led  the 
world  into  very  strange  places  and  much  bad  company. 
In  reaching  a  conclusion,  therefore,  in  which  a  verdict 
is  entered  on  the  motives  and  actions  of  men,  acting 
either  individually  or  in  masses,  the  moral  and  senti- 
1  Webster,  American  Statesman  Series,  p.  172. 


f* SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    63 

mental  must  be  quite  as  much  taken  into  account  as 
the  legal,  the  logical,  and  the  material.  This,  in  the 
present  case,  I  propose  presently  to  do;  but,  as  I  have 
said,  on  the  facts  even  I  am  unable  wholly  to  concur 
with  Professor  Smith  and  Mr.  Lodge. 

Mr.  Lodge,  for  instance,  cites  Washington.  But  it 
so  chances  Washington  put  himself  on  record  upon  the 
point  at  issue,  and  his  testimony  is  directly  at  variance 
with  the  views  attributed  to  him  by  Mr.  Webster's 
biographer.  -What  are  known  in  history  as  the  Ken- 
tucky Resolutions,  drawn  up  by  Thomas  Jefferson, 
then  Vice-President,  were  passed  by  the  Legislature 
of  the  State  whose  name  they  bear  in  November,  1798. 
In  those  resolutions  the  view  of  the  original  scope  of 
the  Constitution,  accepted  by  Professor  Smith  and 
Mr.  Lodge  as  that  generally  held  by  the  framers  of  the 
instrument,  was  first  formally  promulgated.  The  prin- 
ciples acted  upon  by  South  Carolina  on  the  20th  of 
December,  1860,  were  enunciated  by  Kentucky  No- 
vember 10,  1798.  The  dragon's  teeth  were  then  sown. 
Washington  was  at  that  time  living  in  retirement  at 
Mount  Vernon.  When,  a  few  weeks  later,  the  charac- 
ter of  those  resolutions  became  known  to  him,  he  was 
deeply  concerned,  and  wrote  to  Lafayette :  "  The 
Constitution,  according  to  their  interpretation  of  it, 
would  be  a  mere  cipher;"  and  again,  a  few  days  later, 
he  expressed  himself  still  more  strongly  in  a  letter  to 
Patrick  Henry :  "  Measures  are  systematically  and 
pertinaciously  pursued  which  must  eventually  dissolve 
the  Union,  or  produce  coercion."  *  Coercion  Washing- 
ton thus  looked  to  as  the  remedy  to  which  recourse 
could  properly  be  had  in  case  of  any  overt  attempt  at 
secession.  But,  so  far  as  the  framers  of  the  Constitution 
1  Washington's  Works,  vol.  xi,  pp.  378,  389. 


64  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

as  a  whole  were  concerned,  it  seems  to  me  clear  that, 
acting  as  wise  men  of  conflicting  views  naturally  would 
act,  they  did  not  care  to  incur  the  danger  of  a  ship- 
wreck of  their  entire  scheme  by  undertaking  to  settle, 
distinctly  and  in  advance,  abstract  questions,  the  dis- 
cussion of  which  was  fraught  with  danger.  In  so  far  as 
they  could,  they,  with  great  practical  shrewdness,  left 
those  questions  to  be  settled,  should  they  ever  present 
themselves  in  concrete  form,  under  the  conditions  which 
might  then  exist.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  mass 
of  those  composing  the  Convention  of  1787,  working 
under  the  guidance  of  a  few  very  able  and  exceedingly 
practical  men,  of  constructive  mind,  builded  a  great 
deal  better  than  they  knew.  The  delegates  met  to  har- 
monize trade  differences;  they  ended  by  perfecting  a 
scheme  of  political  union  that  had  broad  consequences 
of  which  they  little  dreamed.  If  they  had  dreamed  of 
them,  the  fabric  would  never  have  been  completed. 
That  Madison,  Marshall  and  Jay  were  equally  blind  to 
consequences  does  not  follow.  They  probably  designed 
a  nation.  If  they  did,  however,  they  were  too  wise  to 
take  the  public  into  their  confidence;  and,  to-day,  no 
impartial  student  of  our  constitutional  history  can  doubt 
for  a  moment  that  each  State  ratified  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment submitted  in  the  firm  belief  that  at  any  time 
it  could  withdraw  therefrom.  Probably,  however,  the 
more  far-seeing  —  and,  in  the  long  run,  they  alone 
count  —  shared  with  Washington  in  the  belief  that 
this  withdrawal  would  not  be  unaccompanied  by  prac- 
tical difficulty.1  And,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  the 
legality  of  secession  is  somewhat  of  a  metaphysical  ab- 
straction so  long  as  the  right  of  revolution  is  inalienable. 
As  matter  of  fact  it  was  to  might  and  revolution  the 
1  Donn  Piatt,  George  H.  Thomas,  p.  88. 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    65 

South  appealed  in  1861;  and  it  was  to  coercion  the 
Government  of  the  Union  had  recourse.  So  with  his 
supreme  good  sense  and  that  political  insight  at  once 
instinctive  and  unerring,  in  respect  to  which  he  stands 
almost  alone,  Washington  foresaw  this  alternative  in 
1798.  He  looked  upon  the  doctrine  of  secession  as  a 
heresy;  but,  none  the  less,  it  was  a  heresy  then  preached 
and  to  which  many,  not  in  Virginia  only  but  in  New 
England  also,  pinned  their  political  faith.  Even  the 
Devil  is  proverbially  entitled  to  his  due. 

As  the  utterances  of  Professor  Smith  and  Mr.  Lodge, 
however,  conclusively  show,  so  far  as  the  abstract 
question  is  of  consequence,  the  Secessionists  of  1861 
stand  in  history's  court  by  no  means  without  a  case. 
In  that  case,  moreover,  they  implicitly  believed.  From 
generation  to  generation  they  had  grown  up  indoc- 
trinated with  the  gospel,  or  heresy,  of  State  Sovereignty, 
and  it  was  as  much  part  of  their  moral  and  intellectual 
being  as  was  clanship  of  the  Scotch  Highlanders.  In 
so  far  they  were  right,  as  Governor  John  A.  Andrew 
said  of  John  Brown.  Meanwhile,  practically,  as  a 
common-sensed  man,  leading  an  every-day  existence 
in  a  world  of  actualities,  John  Brown  was  not  right; 
he  was,  on  the  contrary,  altogether  wrong,  and  richly 
merited  the  fate  meted  out  to  him.  It  was  the  same 
with  the  Secessionists.  That,  in  1861,  they  could  really 
have  had  faith  in  the  practicability  —  the  real  work- 
ing efficiency  —  of  that  peaceable  secession  which  they 
professed  to  ask  for,  and  of  which  they  never  wearied 
of  talking,  I  cannot  believe.  I  find  in  the  record  no  real 
evidence  thereof. 

Of  the  high-type  Southron,  as  we  sometimes  desig- 
nate him,  I  would  speak  in  terms  of  sincere  respect. 
I  know  him  chiefly  by  hearsay,  having  come  in  per- 


66  THREE   $  B   K  ADDRESSES 

sonal  contact  only  with  individual  representatives  of 
the  class ;  but  such  means  of  observation  as  I  have  had 
confirm  what  I  recently  heard  said  by  a  friend  of  mine, 
once  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  the  only  man  who  ever  gave  the  impossible  plan 
of  reconstruction  attempted  after  our  Civil  War  a  firm, 
fair,  and  intelligent  trial.  He  at  least  put  forth  an  able 
and  honest  effort  to  make  effective  a  policy  which  never 
should  have  been  devised.  Speaking  from  "much  and 
varied  experience,"  I  recently  heard  Daniel  H.  Cham- 
berlain say  of  the  "typical  Southern  Gentleman"  that 
he  considered  him  "a  distinct  and  really  noble  growth 
of  our  American  soil.  For,  if  fortitude  under  good  and 
under  evil  fortune,  if  endurance  without  complaint  of 
what  comes  in  the  tide  of  human  affairs,  if  a  grim  cling- 
ing to  ideals  once  charming,  if  vigor  and  resiliency  of 
character  and  spirit  under  defeat  and  poverty  and  dis- 
tress, if  a  steady  love  of  learning  and  letters  when  li- 
braries were  lost  in  flames  and  the  wreckage  of  war, 
if  self-restraint  when  the  long-delayed  relief  at  last 
came,  —  if,  I  say,  all  these  qualities  are  parts  of  real 
heroism,  if  these  qualities  can  vivify  and  ennoble  a  man 
or  a  people,  then  our  own  South  may  lay  claim  to  an 
honored  place  among  the  differing  types  of  our  great 
common  race."  Such  is  the  matured  judgment  of  the 
Massachusetts  Governor  of  South  Carolina  during  the 
Congressional  Reconstruction  period ;  and,  listening  to 
it,  I  asked  myself  if  it  was  descriptive  of  a  Southern 
fellow  countryman,  or  a  Jacobite  Scotch  chieftain  an- 
terior to  "the  '45." 

The  Southern  statesmen  of  the  old  slavery  days  — 
the  antediluvian  period  which  preceded  our  mid-cen- 
tury cataclysm  —  were  the  outcome  and  representa- 
tives of  what  has  thus  been  described.    As  such  they 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     67 

presented  a  curious  admixture  of  qualities.  Masterful 
in  temper,  clear  of  purpose,  with  a  firm  grasp  on  prin- 
ciple, a  high  sense  of  honor  and  a  moral  perception 
developed  on  its  peculiar  lines,  as  in  the  case  of  Cal- 
houn, to  a  quality  of  distinct  hardness,  they  were  yet 
essentially  abstractionists.  Political  metaphysicians, 
they  were  not  practical  men.  They  did  not  see  things 
as  they  really  were.  They  thus,  while  discussing  their 
"forty-bale  theories"  and  the  "patriarchal  institution" 
in  connection  with  States'  Rights  and  Nullification, 
failed  to  realize  that  on  the  two  essential  features 
of  their  policy,  —  slavery  and  secession,  —  they  were 
contending  with  the  stars  in  their  courses.  The 
whole  world  was  moving  irresistibly  in  the  direction 
of  nationality  and  an  ever  increased  recognition  of  the 
rights  of  man;  while  they,  on  both  of  these  vital  issues, 
were  proclaiming  a  crusade  of  reaction. 

Moreover,  what  availed  the  views  or  intentions  of 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  ?  What  mattered  it  in 
1860  whether  they,  in  1787,  contemplated  a  Nation  or 
only  a  more  compact  federation  of  Sovereign  States  ? 
Realities  have  an  unpleasant  way  of  asserting  their 
existence.  However  it  may  have  been  in  1788,  in  1860 
a  Nation  had  grown  into  existence.  Its  peaceful  dis- 
memberment was  impossible.  The  complex  system 
of  tissues  and  ligaments,  the  growth  of  seventy  years, 
could  not  be  gently  taken  apart,  without  wound  or 
hurt;  the  separation,  if  separation  there  was  to  be, 
involved  a  tearing  asunder,  supplementing  a  liberal 
use  of  the  knife.  Their  professions  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  this  the  Southern  leaders  failed  not 
to  realize.  In  point  of  fact,  therefore,  believing  fully 
in  the  abstract  legality  of  secession,  and  the  justice  and 
sufficiency  of  the  grounds  for  the  act  of  secession  in 


68  THREE  3>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

1861,  as  matter  of  fact  their  appeal  then  was  to  the 
inalienable  right  of  revolution;  and  to  that  might  by 
which  alone  the  right  could  be  upheld.  Let  us  put 
casuistry,  metaphysics  and  sentiment  aside,  and  come 
to  actualities.  The  secessionist  recourse  in  1861  was  to 
the  sword ;  and  to  the  sword  it  was  meant  to  have 
recourse. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  only  of  the  South  as  a  whole. 
Much  has  been  said  and  written  on  the  subject  of  an 
alleged  conspiracy  in  those  days  of  Southern  men 
and  leaders  against  the  Union;  of  the  designs  and 
ultimate  objects  of  the  alleged  conspirators;  of  acts 
of  treachery  on  their  part,  and  the  part  of  their  ac- 
complices, towards  the  Government,  of  which  they 
were  the  sworn  officials.  Into  this  phase  of  the  sub- 
ject I  do  not  propose  to  enter.  That  the  leaders  in 
secession  were  men  with  large  views,  and  that  they 
had  matured  a  comprehensive  policy  as  the  ultimate 
outcome  of  their  movement,  I  entertain  no  doubt. 
They  looked  unquestionably  to  an  easy  military  suc- 
cess, and  the  complete  establishment  of  their  Confed- 
eracy; more  remotely,  there  can  be  no  question  they 
contemplated  a  policy  of  extension,  and  the  establish- 
ment along  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  in  the 
Antilles  of  a  great  semi-tropical,  slave-labor  republic; 
finally,  all  my  investigations  have  tended  to  satisfy  me 
that  they  confidently  anticipated  an  early  subsequent 
disintegration  of  the  Union,  and  the  accession  of  the 
bulk  of  the  Northern  States  to  the  Confederacy,  New 
England  only  being  sternly  excluded  therefrom  — 
"sloughed  off,"  as  they  expressed  it.  The  capital  of 
the  new  Confederacy  was  to  be  Washington;  African 
servitude,  under  reasonable  limitations,  was  to  be 
recognized  throughout  its  limits;  agriculture  was  to 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     69 

be  its  ruling  interest,  with  a  tariff  and  foreign  policy 
in  strict  accord  therewith.  "Secession  is  not  intended 
to  break  up  the  present  government,  but  to  perpetuate 
it.  We  go  out  of  the  Union,  not  to  destroy  it,  but  for 
the  purpose  of  getting  further  guarantees  and  secur- 
ity,"—  this  was  said  in  January,  1861;  and  this  in 
1900,  —  "And  so  we  believe  that,  with  the  success  of 
the  South,  the  *  Union  of  the  Fathers/  which  the  South 
was  the  principal  factor  in  forming,  and  to  which  she 
was  far  more  attached  than  the  North,  would  have 
been  restored  and  reestablished:  that  in  this  Union, 
the  South  would  have  been  again  the  dominant  people, 
the  controlling  power.' '  Conceding  the  necessary 
premises  of  fact  and  law,  —  a  somewhat  considerable 
concession,  but,  perhaps,  conceivable,  —  conceding 
these,  I  see  in  this  position,  then  or  now,  nothing  il- 
logical, nothing  provocative  of  severe  criticism,  cer- 
tainly nothing  treasonable.  Acting  on  sufficient  grounds, 
of  which  those  thus  acting  were  the  sole  judge,  pro- 
ceeding in  a  way  indisputably  legal  and  regular,  it 
was  proposed  to  reconstruct  the  Union  in  the  light 
of  experience,  and  on  a  new,  and,  as  they  considered, 
an  improved  basis,  without  New  England.  This  can- 
not properly  be  termed  a  conspiracy;  it  was  a  legiti- 
mate policy  based  on  certain  assumed  data  legal,  moral 
and  economical.  But  it  was  in  reality  never  for  a  mo- 
ment believed  that  this  programme  could  be  peaceably 
and  quietly  carried  into  effect;  and  the  assent  of  New 
England  to  the  arrangement  was  neither  asked  for, 
assumed,  nor  expected.  New  England  was  distinctly 
relegated  to  an  outer  void,  —  at  once  cold,  dark,  in- 
hospitable. 

As  to  an  official  participation  of  those  who  sympa- 
thized in  these  views  and  this  policy  in  the  councils  of 


70  THREE  <E>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

the  Government,  so  furthering  schemes  for  its  overthrow 
while  sworn  to  its  support,  I  hold  it  unnecessary  to 
speak.  Such  were  traitors.  As  such,  had  they  met  their 
deserts,  they  should,  at  the  proper  time  and  on  due 
process  of  law,  have  been  arrested,  tried,  convicted,  sen- 
tenced, and  hanged.  That  in  certain  well-remembered 
instances  this  course  was  not  pursued,  is,  to  my  mind, 
even  yet  much  to  be  deplored.  In  such  cases  clemency 
is  only  another  form  of  cant. 

Having  now  discussed  what  have  seemed  to  me  the 
necessary  preliminaries,  I  come  to  the  particular  cases 
of  Virginia  and  Robert  E.  Lee.  The  two  are  closely 
interwoven,  —  for  Virginia  was  always  Virginia,  and 
the  Lees  were,  first,  over  and  above  all,  Virginians.  It 
was  the  Duke  of  Wellington  who,  on  a  certain  memo- 
rable occasion,  indignantly  remarked  in  his  delightful 
French-English,  —  "Mais  avant  tout  je  suis  gentil- 
homme  anglais."  So  might  have  said  the  Lees  of 
themselves,  in  their  connection  with  Virginia. 

As  respects  Virginia,  moreover,  I  am  fain  to  say 
there  was  in  the  attitude  of  the  State  towards  the  Con- 
federacy, and,  indeed,  in  its  bearing  throughout  the 
Civil  War,  something  which  appealed  strongly,  — 
something  unselfish  and  chivalric,  —  worthy  of  Vir- 
ginia's highest  record.  History  will,  I  think,  do  justice 
to  it.  Virginia,  it  must  be  remembered,  while  a  Slave 
State,  was  not  a  Cotton  State.  This  was  a  distinction 
involving  a  difference.  In  Virginia  the  institution  of 
slavery  existed,  and  because  of  it  she  was  in  close  sym- 
pathy with  her  sister  Slave  States;  but,  while  in  the 
Cotton  States  slavery  had  gradually  assumed  a  purely 
material  form,  in  Virginia  it  still  retained  much  of  its 
patriarchal  character.  The  slave  there  was  not  a  mere 
transferable  chattel,  like  a  horse  or  mule;  practically, 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     71 

and  to  a  large  extent,  he  was  attached  to  the  house  and 
the  soil.  This  fact  had  a  direct  bearing  on  the  moral 
issue;  for  slavery  was  one  thing  in  Virginia,  quite  an- 
other in  Louisiana.  The  Virginian  pride  was  moreover 
proverbial.  Indeed,  I  doubt  if  local  feeling  and  patriot- 
ism, and  devotion  to  the  State  ever  anywhere  attained 
a  higher  development  than  in  the  community  which 
dwelt  in  the  region  watered  by  the  Potomac  and  the 
James,  of  which  Richmond  was  the  political  centre. 
We  of  the  North,  especially  we  of  New  England,  were 
Yankees;  but  a  Virginian  was  a  Virginian,  and  nothing 
else.  I  have  heard  of  a  New  Englander,  of  a  Green 
Mountain  boy,  of  a  Rhode  Islander,  of  a  "Nutmeg/*  of 
a  "Blue-nose"  even,  but  never  of  a  Massachusettensian. 
The  word  somehow  does  not  lend  itself  to  the  mouth, 
any  more  than  the  thought  to  the  mind. 

But  Virginia  was  strongly  attached  by  sentiment  as 
well  as  interest  to  the  Union.  The  birthplace  of  Wash- 
ington, the  mother  of  States,  as  well  as  of  Presidents, 
the  "Old  Dominion,"  as  she  was  called,  and  fondly 
loved  to  call  herself,  had  never  been  affected  by  the 
nullification  heresies  of  South  Carolina;  and  the  long 
line  of  her  eminent  public  men,  though,  in  1860,  show- 
ing marked  signs  of  a  deteriorating  standard,  still  re- 
tained a  prominence  in  the  national  councils.  If  John 
B.  Floyd  was  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Winfield  Scott 
was  at  the  head  of  the  Army.  Torn  by  conflicting 
feelings,  Virginia  still  held  to  the  Nation,  unwilling 
to  sever  her  connection  with  it  because  of  the  lawful 
election  of  an  anti-slavery  President,  even  by  a  dis- 
tinctly sectional  vote.  For  a  time  she  even  stayed  the 
fast  flooding  tide  of  secession,  bringing  about  a  brief 
but  important  reaction.  Those  of  us  old  enough  to 
remember  the  drear  and  anxious  winter  which  followed 


72  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

the  election  and  preceded  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln, 
recall  vividly  the  ray  of  bright  hope  which,  in  the  midst 
of  its  deepest  gloom,  then  came  from  Virginia,  It  was 
in  early  February.  Up  to  that  time  the  record  was 
unbroken.  Beginning  with  South  Carolina  on  the  20th 
of  December,  State  after  State,  meeting  in  convention, 
had  with  significant  unanimity  passed  ordinances  of 
secession.  Each  successive  ordinance  was  felt  to  be 
the  equivalent  to  a  renewed  declaration  of  war.  The 
outlook  was  dark  indeed;  and,  amid  the  fast  gathering 
gloom,  all  eyes,  all  thoughts,  turned  to  Virginia.  She 
represented  what  were  known  as  the  Border  States; 
her  action  it  was  felt  would  largely  influence,  and  might 
control,  theirs.  John  Letcher  was  then  Governor  of 
Virginia, —  a  States'  Rights  Democrat,  of  course;  but 
a  Union  man.  By  him  the  Legislature  of  the  State  was 
in  December  called  together  in  special  session,  and 
that  Legislature  passed  what  was  known  as  a  conven- 
tion bill.  Practically  Virginia  was  to  vote  on  the  ques- 
tion at  issue.  Events  moved  rapidly.  South  Carolina 
had  seceded  on  the  20th  of  December;  Mississippi 
on  the  8th  of  January;  Alabama  and  Florida  only 
three  days  later,  on  the  11th;  Georgia  followed  on  the 
19th;  Louisiana  on  the  26th,  with  Texas  on  the  1st 
of  February.  The  procession  seemed  unending;  the 
record  unbroken.  Not  without  cause  might  the  now 
thoroughly  frightened  friends  of  the  Union  have  ex- 
claimed with  Macbeth: 

"What!  will  the  line  stretch  out  to  the  crack  of  doom? 
Another  yet?    A  seventh  ?" 

If  at  that  juncture  the  Old  Dominion  by  a  decisive 
vote  had  followed  in  the  steps  of  the  Cotton  States  it 
implied  consequences  which  no  man  could  fathom. 
It  involved  the  possession  of  the  national  capital,  and 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    73 

the  continuance  of  the  Government.  Maryland  would 
inevitably  follow  the  Virginian  lead;  the  recently 
elected  President  had  not  yet  been  inaugurated;  taken 
wholly  by  surprise,  the  North  was  divided  in  sentiment; 
the  loyal  spirit  of  the  country  was  not  aroused.  It  was 
thus  an  even  question  whether,  on  the  4th  of  March, 
the  whole  machinery  of  the  de  facto  government  would 
not  be  in  the  hands  of  the  revolutionists.  All  depended 
on  Virginia.  This  is  now  forgotten;  none  the  less, 
it  is  history. 

The  Virginia  election  was  held  on  the  4th  of  Feb- 
ruary, the  news  of  the  secession  of  Texas  —  seventh 
in  the  line  —  having  been  received  on  the  2d.  Evi- 
dently, the  action  of  Texas  was  carefully  timed  for 
effect.  Though  over  forty  years  ago,  I  well  remember 
that  day,  —  gray,  overcast,  wintry,  —  which  succeeded 
the  Virginia  election.  Then  living  in  Boston,  a  young 
man  of  twenty-five,  I  shared  —  as  who  did  not  ?  — 
in  the  common  deep  depression  and  intense  anxiety. 
It  was  as  if  a  verdict  was  to  be  that  day  announced 
in  a  case  involving  fortune,  honor,  life  even.  Too 
harassed  for  work,  I  remember  leaving  my  office  in 
the  afternoon  to  seek  relief  in  physical  activity,  for 
the  ponds  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston  were  ice-covered 
and  daily  thronged  with  skaters.  I  was  soon  among 
the  number,  gloomily  seeking  unfrequented  spots. 
Suddenly  I  became  aware  of  an  unusual  movement  in 
the  throng  nearest  the  shore,  where  those  fresh  from 
the  city  arrived.  The  skaters  seemed  crowding  to  a 
common  point;  and  a  moment  later  they  scattered 
again,  with  cheers  and  gestures  of  relief.  An  arrival 
fresh  from  Boston  had  brought  the  first  bulletin  of 
yesterday's  election.  Virginia,  speaking  against  seces- 
sion, had  emitted  no  uncertain  sound.     It  was  as  if 


74  THREE  3>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

a  weight  had  been  taken  off  the  mind  of  every  one. 
The  tide  seemed  turned  at  last.  For  myself,  I  remem- 
ber my  feelings  were  too  deep  to  find  expression  in 
words  or  sound.  Something  stuck  in  my  throat.  I 
wanted  to  be  by  myself. 

Nor  did  we  overestimate  the  importance  of  the 
event.  If  it  did  not  in  the  end  mean  reaction,  it  did 
mean  time  gained;  and  time  then,  as  the  result  showed, 
was  vital.  As  William  H.  Seward,  representing  the 
President-elect  in  Washington,  wrote  during  those 
days:  "The  people  of  the  District  are  looking  anx- 
iously for  the  result  of  the  Virginia  election.  They 
fear  if  Virginia  resolves  on  secession,  Maryland  will 
follow;  and  then  Washington  will  be  seized.  .  .  .  The 
election  to-morrow  probably  determines  whether  all 
the  Slave  States  will  take  the  attitude  of  disunion. 
Everybody  around  me  thinks  that  that  will  make  the 
separation  irretrievable,  and  involve  us  in  flagrant 
civil  war.  Practically  everybody  will  despair."  A  day 
or  two  later  the  news  came  "like  a  gleam  of  sunshine 
in  a  storm."  The  disunion  movement  Was  checked, 
perhaps  would  be  checkmated.  Well  might  Seward, 
with  a  sigh  of  profound  relief,  write  to  his  wife:  "At 
least,  the  danger  of  conflict,  here  or  elsewhere,  before 
the  4th  of  March,  has  been  averted.  Time  has  been 
gained."  !  Time  was  gained;  and  the  few  weeks  of 
precious  time  thus  gained  through  the  expiring  effort 
of  Union  sentiment  in  Virginia  involved  the  vital  fact  of 
the  peaceful  delivery,  four  weeks  later,  of  the  helm 
of  State  into  the  hands  of  Lincoln. 

Thus,  be  it  always  remembered,  Virginia  did  not 
take  its  place  in  the  secession  movement  because  of 
the  election  of  an  anti-slavery  President.  It  did  not 
1  Seward  at  Washington,  vol.  ii,  p.  502. 


" SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    75 

raise  its  hand  against  the  National  Government  from 
mere  love  of  any  peculiar  institution,  or  a  wish  to  pro- 
tect and  to  perpetuate  it.  It  refused  to  be  precipitated 
into  a  civil  convulsion ;  and  its  refusal  was  of  vital 
moment.  The  ground  of  Virginia's  final  action  was  of 
wholly  another  nature,  and  of  a  nature  far  more  credit- 
able. Virginia,  as  I  have  said,  made  State  Sovereignty 
an  article  —  a  cardinal  article  —  of  its  political  creed. 
So,  logically  and  consistently,  it  took  the  position  that, 
though  it  might  be  unwise  for  a  State  to  secede,  a 
State  which  did  secede  could  not,  and  should  not  be 
coerced. 

To  us  now  this  position  seems  worse  than  illogical; 
it  is  impossible.  So  events  proved  it.  Yet,  after  all,  it 
is  based  on  the  great  fundamental  principle  of  the 
consent  of  the  governed;  and,  in  the  days  immediately 
preceding  the  war,  something  very  like  it  was  ac- 
cepted as  an  article  of  correct  political  faith  by  men 
afterwards  as  strenuous  in  support  of  a  Union  rees- 
tablished by  force  as  Charles  Sumner,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, William  H.  Seward,  Salmon  P.  Chase  and  Horace 
Greeley.  The  difference  was  that,  confronted  by  the 
overwhelming  tide  of  events,  Virginia  adhered  to  it; 
they,  in  presence  of  that  tide,  tacitly  abandoned  it.  In 
my  judgment,  they  were  right.  But  Virginia,  though 
mistaken,  more  consistent,  judged  otherwise.  As  I  have 
said,  in  shaping  a  practical  outcome  of  human  affairs 
logic  is  often  as  irreconcilable  with  the  dictates  of 
worldly  wisdom  as  are  metaphysics  with  common 
sense.  So,  now,  the  issue  shifted.  It  became  a  ques- 
tion, not  of  slavery  or  of  the  wisdom,  or  even  the  ex- 
pediency, of  secession,  but  of  the  right  of  the  National 
Government  to  coerce  a  Sovereign  State.  This  at  the 
time  was  well  understood.    The  extremists  of  the  South 


76  THREE  <I>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

counted  upon  a  denial  of  that  right  by  all  the  Southern 
States  at  least;  and  they  counted  upon  it  with  absolute 
confidence.  They  openly  proclaimed  their  reliance  in 
debate.  Florida,  as  the  representatives  of  that  State 
confessed  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  might  in  itself  be 
of  small  account;  but  Florida,  panoplied  with  sover- 
eignty, was  hemmed  in  and  buttressed  against  assault 
by  protecting  sister  States. 

So,  in  his  history,  James  F.  Rhodes  asserts  that  — 
"The  four  men  who  in  the  last  resort  made  the  de- 
cision that  began  the  war  were  ex-Senator  Chestnut, 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Chisholm,  Captain  Lee,  all  three 
South  Carolinians,  and  Roger  A.  Pryor,  a  Virginia  se- 
cessionist, who  two  days  before  in  a  speech  at  the 
Charleston  Hotel  had  said,  —  'I  will  tell  your  governor 
what  will  put  Virginia  in  the  Southern  Confederacy  in 
less  than  an  hour  by  Shrewsbury  clock.  Strike  a  blow  I ' M  ' 
The  blow  was  to  be  in  reply  to  what  was  accepted  as 
the  first  overt  effort  at  the  national  coercion  of  a  Sov- 
ereign State,  —  the  attempted  relief  of  Sumter.  That 
attempt,  —  unavoidable  even  if  long  deferred,  the 
necessary  and  logical  outcome  of  a  situation  which  had 
become  impossible  of  continuance, — that  attempt,  con- 
strued into  an  effort  at  coercion,  swept  Virginia  from 
her  Union  moorings. 

Thus,  when  the  long-deferred  hour  of  fateful  decis- 
ion came,  the  position  of  Virginia,  be  it  in  historical 
justice  said,  however  impetuous,  mistaken,  or  ill-ad- 
vised, was  taken  on  no  low  or  sordid  or  selfish  grounds. 
On  the  contrary,  the  logical  assertion  of  a  cardinal  ar- 
ticle of  accepted  political  faith,  it  was  made  generously, 
chivalrously,  in  a  spirit  almost  altruistic;  for,  from  the 
outset,  it  was  manifest  Virginia  had  nothing  to  gain 
1  Rhodes,  United  States,  vol.  iii,  p.  349. 


'SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    77 

in  that  conflict  of  which  she  must  perforce  be  the  battle- 
ground. True!  her  leading  men  doubtless  believed 
that  the  struggle  would  soon  be  brought  to  a  triumph- 
ant close,  —  that  Southern  chivalry  and  fighting 
qualities  would  win  a  quick  and  easy  victory  over  a 
more  materially  minded,  even  if  not  craven,  Northern 
mob  of  fanatics  and  cobblers  and  peddlers,  officered  by 
preachers:  but,  however  thus  deceived  and  misled  at 
the  outset,  Virginia  entered  on  the  struggle  others  had 
initiated,  for  their  protection  and  in  their  behalf.  She 
thrust  herself  between  them  and  the  tempest  they  had 
invoked.  Technically  it  may  have  been  treasonable; 
but  her  attitude  was  consistent,  was  bold,  was  chival- 
rous: 

"An  honourable  murderer  if  you  will; 
For  naught  did  he  in  hate  but  all  in  honour." 

So  much  for  Virginia;  and  now  as  to  Robert  E.  Lee. 
More  than  once  already,  on  occasions  not  unlike  this, 
have  I  quoted  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes's  remark  in 
answer  to  the  query  of  an  anxious  mother  as  to  when 
a  child's  education  ought  to  begin  —  "About  250  years 
before  it  is  born;"  and  it  is  a  fact  —  somewhat  neces- 
sitarian, doubtless,  but  still  a  fact  —  that  every  man's 
life  is  largely  moulded  for  him  far  back  in  the  ages.  We 
philosophize  freely  over  fate  and  free  will,  and  one  of 
the  excellent  commonplaces  of  our  educational  system 
is  to  instil  into  the  minds  of  the  children  in  our  com- 
mon schools  the  idea  that  every  man  is  the  architect 
of  his  own  life.  An  admirable  theory  to  teach;  but, 
happily  for  the  race,  true  only  to  a  very  limited  extent. 
Heredity  is  a  tremendous  limiting  fact.  Native  force  of 
character  —  individuality  —  doubtless  has  something 
to  do  with  results;  but  circumstances,  ancestry,  en- 
vironment have  much  more.    One  man  possibly  in  a 


78  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

hundred  has  in  him  the  inherent  force  to  make  his  con- 
ditions largely  for  himself;  but  even  he  moves  influ- 
enced at  every  step  from  cradle  to  grave  by  antenatal 
and  birth  conditions.  Take  any  man  you  please, — 
yourself,  for  instance;  now  and  again  the  changes  of 
life  give  opportunity,  and  the  individual  is  equal  to  the 
occasion,  —  the  roads  forking,  consciously  or  instinct- 
ively he  makes  his  choice.  Under  such  circumstances, 
he  usually  supposes  that  he  does  so  as  a  free  agent. 
The  world  so  assumes,  holding  him  responsible.  He 
is  nothing  of  the  sort;  or  at  best  such  only  in  a  very 
limited  degree.  The  other  day  one  of  our  humorists 
took  occasion  to  philosophize  on  this  topic,  delivering 
what  might  not  inaptly  be  termed  an  occasional  dis- 
course appropriate  to  the  22d  of  February.  It  was  not 
only  worth  reading,  but  in  humor  and  sentiment  it  was 
somewhat  suggestive  of  the  melancholy  Jacques.  "We 
are  made,  brick  by  brick,  of  influences,  patiently  built 
up  around  the  framework  of  our  born  dispositions. 
It  is  the  sole  process  of  construction ;  there  is  no  other. 
Every  man,  woman  and  child  is  an  influence.  Wash- 
ington's disposition  was  born  in  him,  he  did  not  create 
it.  It  was  the  architect  of  his  character;  his  character 
was  the  architect  of  his  achievements.  It  had  a  native 
affinity  for  all  influences  fine  and  great,  and  gave  them 
hospitable  welcome  and  permanent  shelter.  It  had  a 
native  aversion  for  all  influences  mean  and  gross,  and 
passed  them  on.  It  chose  its  ideals  for  him;  and  out  of 
its  patiently  gathered  materials,  it  built  and  shaped 
his  golden  character. 

"And  we  give  him  the  credit." 

Three  names  of  Virginians  are  impressed  on  the  mili- 
tary records  of  our  Civil  War,  —  indelibly  impressed, 
—  Winfield  Scott,  George  Henry  Thomas,  and  Robert 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    79 

Edward  Lee;  the  last  most  deeply.  Of  the  three,  the 
first  two  stood  by  the  flag;  the  third  went  with  his  State. 
Each,  when  the  time  came,  acted  conscientiously,  im- 
pelled by  the  purest  sense  of  loyalty,  honor  and  obli- 
gation, taking  that  course  which,  under  the  circum- 
stances and  according  to  his  lights,  seemed  to  him  right; 
and  each  doubtless  thought  he  acted  as  a  free  agent. 
To  a  degree  each  was  a  free  agent;  to  a  much  greater 
degree  each  was  the  child  of  anterior  conditions,  hered- 
itary sequence,  existing  circumstances,  —  in  a  word, 
of  human  environment,  moral,  material,  intellectual. 
Scott  or  Thomas  or  Lee,  being  as  he  was,  and  things 
being  as  things  were,  could  not  decide  otherwise  than 
as  he  did  decide.  Consider  them  in  order;  Scott 
first. 

A  Virginian  by  birth,  early  association  and  marriage, 
Scott,  at  the  breaking-out  of  the  Civil  War,  had  not 
lived  in  his  native  State  for  forty  years.  Not  a  planter, 
he  held  no  broad  acres  and  owned  no  slaves.  Essen- 
tially a  soldier,  he  was  a  citizen  of  the  United  States; 
and,  for  twenty  years,  had  been  the  general  in  com- 
mand of  its  army.  When,  in  April,  1861,  Virginia 
passed  its  ordinance  of  secession,  he  was  well  advanced 
in  his  seventy-fifth  year,  —  an  old  man,  he  was  no 
longer  equal  to  active  service.  The  course  he  would 
pursue  was  thus  largely  marked  out  for  him  in  advance; 
a  violent  effort  on  his  part  could  alone  have  forced  him 
out  of  the  customary  path.  When  subjected  to  the  test, 
what  he  did  was  infinitely  creditable  to  him,  and  the 
obligation  the  cause  of  the  Union  lay  under  to  him 
during  the  critical  period  between  December,  1860, 
and  June,  1861,  can  scarcely  be  overstated;  but,  none 
the  less,  in  doing  as  he  did,  it  cannot  be  denied  he  fol- 
lowed what  was  for  him  the  line  of  least  resistance. 


80  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

Of  George  Henry  Thomas,  no  American,  North  or 
South,  —  above  all,  no  American  who  served  in  the 
Civil  War,  —  whether  wearer  of  the  blue  or  the  gray, 
—  can  speak,  save  with  infinite  respect,  —  always  with 
admiration,  often  with  love.  Than  his,  no  record  is 
clearer  from  stain.  Thomas  also  was  a  Virginian.  At 
the  time  of  the  breaking-out  of  the  Civil  War,  he  held 
the  rank  of  major  in  that  regiment  of  cavalry  of  which 
Lee,  nine  years  his  senior  in  age,  was  colonel.  He  never 
hesitated  in  his  course.  True  to  the  flag  from  start  to 
finish,  William  T.  Sherman,  then  General  of  the  Army, 
in  the  order  announcing  the  death  of  his  friend  and 
classmate  at  the  Academy,  most  properly  said  of  him: 
"The  very  impersonation  of  honesty,  integrity  and 
honor,  he  will  stand  to  posterity  as  the  beau  ideal  of  the 
soldier  and  gentleman."  More  tersely,  Thomas  stands 
for  character  personified.  Washington  himself  not 
more  so.  And  now  having  said  this,  let  us  come  again 
to  the  choice  of  Hercules,  —  the  parting  of  those  ter- 
rible ways  of  1861. 

Like  Scott  and  Lee,  Thomas  was  a  Virginian ;  but, 
again,  there  are  Virginians  and  Virginians.  Thomas 
was  not  a  Lee.  When,  in  1855,  the  Second  United 
States  Cavalry  was  organized,  Jefferson  Davis  being 
Secretary  of  War,  Captain  Thomas,  as  he  then  was 
and  in  his  thirty-ninth  year,  was  appointed  its  junior 
major.  Between  that  time  and  April,  1861,  fifty-one 
officers  are  said  to  have  borne  commissions  in  that 
regiment,  thirty-one  of  whom  were  from  the  South; 
and  of  those  thirty-one,  no  less  than  twenty-four  en- 
tered the  Confederate  service,  twelve  of  whom,  among 
them  Robert  E.  Lee,  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  and  John 
B.  Hood,  became  general  officers.  The  name  of  the 
Virginian,  George  H.  Thomas,  stands  first  of  the  faith- 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    81 

ful  seven;  but,  Union  or  Confederate,  it  is  a  record  of 
brilliant  names,  and  fortunate  is  the  people,  great  of  ne- 
cessity their  destiny,  which  in  the  hour  of  exigency,  on 
the  one  side  or  the  other,  naturally  develops  from  the 
roster  of  a  single  regiment  men  of  the  ability,  the  dis- 
interestedness, the  capacity,  and  the  character  of  Lee, 
Thomas,  Johnston  and  Hood.  It  is  a  record  which 
inspires  confidence  as  well  as  pride. 

And  now  of  the  two  men — Thomas  and  Lee.  Though 
born  in  Virginia,  General  Thomas  was  not  of  a  pecu- 
liarly Virginian  descent.  By  ancestry,  he  was,  on  the 
father's  side,  Welsh;  French  on  that  of  the  mother. 
He  was  not  of  the  old  Virginia  stock.  Born  in  the  south- 
eastern portion  of  the  State,  near  the  North  Carolina 
line,  we  are  told  that  his  family,  dwelling  on  a  "goodly 
home  property,"  was  "well  to  do"  and  eminently  "re- 
spectable;" but,  it  is  added,  there  "were  no  Cavaliers 
in  the  Thomas  family,  and  not  the  remotest  trace  of 
the  Pocahontas  blood."  When  the  war  broke  out,  in 
1861,  Thomas  had  been  twenty-one  years  a  commis- 
sioned officer;  and  during  those  years  he  seems  to  have 
lived  almost  everywhere,  except  in  Virginia.  It  had 
been  a  life  at  military  stations;  his  wife  was  from  New 
York;  his  home  was  on  the  Hudson  rather  than  on 
the  Nottoway.  In  his  native  State  he  owned  no  pro- 
perty, land  or  chattels.  Essentially  a  soldier,  when 
the  hour  for  choice  came,  the  soldier  dominated  the 
Virginian.    He  stood  by  the  flag. 

Not  so  Lee;  for  to  Lee  I  now  come.  Of  him  it  might, 
and  in  justice  must,  be  said,  that  he  was  more  than  of 
the  essence,  he  was  of  the  very  quintessence  of  Vir- 
ginia. In  his  case,  the  roots  and  fibres  struck  down 
and  spread  wide  in  the  soil,  making  him  of  it  a  part.  A 
son  of  the  Revolutionary  "Light  Horse  Harry,"  he  had 


82  THREE  3>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

married  a  Custis.  His  children  represented  all  there 
was  of  descent,  blood  and  tradition  of  the  Old  Domin- 
ion, made  up  as  the  Old  Dominion  was  of  tradition, 
blood  and  descent.  The  holder  of  broad  patrimonial 
acres,  by  birth  and  marriage  he  was  a  slave-owner, 
and  a  slave-owner  of  the  patriarchal  type,  holding 
"slavery  as  an  institution,  a  moral  and  political  evil." 
Every  sentiment,  every  memory,  every  tie  conceivable 
bound  him  to  Virginia;  and,  when  the  choice  was 
forced  upon  him,  —  had  to  be  made,  —  sacrificing 
rank,  career,  the  flag,  he  threw  in  his  lot  with  Vir- 
ginia. He  did  so,  with  open  eyes  and  weighing  the  con- 
sequences. He  at  least  indulged  in  no  self-deception,  — 
wandered  away  from  the  path  in  no  cloud  of  political 
metaphysics,  —  nourished  no  delusion  as  to  an  early 
and  easy  triumph.  "  Secession,"  as  he  wrote  to  his  son, 
"is  nothing  but  revolution.  The  framers  of  our  Con- 
stitution never  exhausted  so  much  labor,  wisdom  and 
forbearance  in  its  formation,  and  surrounded  it  with 
so  many  guards  and  securities,  if  it  was  intended  to  be 
broken  by  every  member  of  the  confederacy  at  will.  It 
is  idle  to  talk  of  secession."  But  he  also  believed  that 
his  permanent  allegiance  was  due  to  Virginia;  that  her 
secession,  though  revolutionary,  bound  all  Virginians, 
and  ended  their  connection  with  and  duties  to  the  Na- 
tional Government.  Thereafter,  to  remain  in  the  United 
States  Army  would  be  treason  to  Virginia.  So,  two  days 
after  Virginia  passed  its  ordinance,  he,  being  then  at  Ar- 
lington, resigned  his  commission,  at  the  same  time  writ- 
ing to  his  sister,  the  wife  of  a  Union  officer,  —  "  We  are 
now  in  a  state  of  war  which  will  yield  to  nothing.  The 
whole  South  is  in  a  state  of  revolution,  into  which 
Virginia,  after  a  long  struggle,  has  been  drawn ;  and, 
though  I  recognize  no  necessity  for  this  state  of  things, 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     83 

and  would  have  forborne  and  pleaded  to  the  end  for 
redress  of  grievances,  real  or  supposed,  yet  in  my  own 
person  I  had  to  meet  the  question  whether  I  should  take 
part  against  my  native  State.  With  all  my  devotion  to 
the  Union,  and  the  feeling  of  loyalty  and  duty  of 
an  American  citizen,  I  have  not  been  able  to  make  up 
my  mind  to  raise  my  hand  against  my  relatives,  my 
children,  my  home.  I  have,  therefore,  resigned  my  com- 
mission in  the  army;  and,  save  in  defence  of  my  native 
State,  I  hope  I  may  never  be  called  on  to  draw  my 
sword."  Two  days  before  he  had  been  unreservedly 
tendered,  on  behalf  of  President  Lincoln,  the  command 
of  the  Union  Army  then  immediately  to  be  put  in  the 
field  in  front  of  Washington,  —  the  command  shortly 
afterwards  held  by  General  McDowell. 

So  thought  and  spoke  and  wrote  and  acted  Robert 
E.  Lee  in  April,  1861.  He  has,  for  the  decision  thus 
reached,  been  termed  by  some  a  traitor,  a  deserter, 
almost  an  apostate,  and  consigned  to  the  "avenging 
pen  of  History."  I  cannot  so  see  it;  I  am  confident 
posterity  will  not  so  see  it.  The  name  and  conditions 
being  changed,  those  who  uttered  the  words  of  censure, 
invoking  "the  avenging  pen,"  did  not  so  see  it  —  have 
not  seen  it  so.  Let  us  appeal  to  the  record.  What  other- 
wise did  George  Washington  do  under  circumstances 
not  dissimilar?  What  would  he  have  done  under  cir- 
cumstances wholly  similar?  Like  Lee,  Washington 
was  a  soldier;  like  Lee,  he  was  a  Virginian  before  he 
was  a  soldier.  He  had  served  under  King  George's  flag; 
he  had  sworn  allegiance  to  King  George;  his  ambition 
had  been  to  hold  the  royal  commission.  Presently  Vir- 
ginia seceded  from  the  British  Empire, — renounced 
its  allegiance.  What  did  Washington  do  ?  He  threw 
in  his  lot  with  his  native  province.    Do  you  hold  him 


84  THREE  <S>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

then  to  have  been  a  traitor,  —  to  have  been  false  to  his 
colors?  Such  is  not  your  verdict;  such  has  not  been 
the  verdict  of  history.  He  acted  conscientiously,  loyally, 
as  a  son  of  Virginia,  and  according  to  his  lights.  Will 
you  say  that  Lee  did  otherwise? 

But  men  love  to  differentiate:  and  of  drawing  of 
distinctions  there  is  no  end.  The  cases  were  different, 
it  will  be  argued;  at  the  time  Virginia  renounced  its 
allegiance  Washington  did  not  hold  the  King's  com- 
mission, indeed  he  never  held  it.  As  a  soldier  he  was 
a  provincial  always,  —  he  bore  a  Virginian  commission. 
True!  Let  the  distinction  be  conceded;  then  assume 
that  the  darling  wish  of  his  younger  heart  had  been 
granted  to  him,  and  that  he  had  received  the  King's 
commission,  and  held  it  in  1775;  what  course  would 
he  then  have  pursued  ?  What  course  would  you  wish 
him  to  have  pursued  ?  Do  you  not  wish  —  do  you  not 
know  —  that,  circumstanced  as  then  he  would  have 
been,  he  would  have  done  exactly  as  Robert  E.  Lee  did 
eighty-six  years  later  ?  He  would  first  have  resigned  his 
commission;  and  then  arrayed  himself  on  the  side  of 
Virginia.  Would  you  have  had  him  do  otherwise  ? — And 
so  it  goes  in  this  world !  In  such  cases  the  usual  form  of 
speech  is:  "Oh!  that  is  different!  Another  case  alto- 
gether !"  Yes,  it  is  different;  it  is  another  case.  For  it 
makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world  with  a  man  who 
argues  thus,  whether  it  is  his  ox  that  is  gored  or  that  of 
the  other  man! 

And  here  in  preparing  this  address  I  must  fairly  ac- 
knowledge having  encountered  an  obstacle  in  my  path 
also.  When  considering  the  course  of  another,  it  is  al- 
ways well  to  ask  one's  self  the  question  — What  would 
you  yourself  have  done  if  similarly  placed  ?  Warmed 
by  my  argument,  and  the  great  precedents  of  Lee  and 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     85 

of  Washington,  I  did  so  here.  I  and  mine  were  and  are 
at  least  as  much  identified  with  Massachusetts  as  was 
Lee  and  his  with  Virginia;  traditionally,  historically, 
by  blood  and  memory  and  name,  we  with  the  Puritan 
Commonwealth  as  they  with  the  Old  Dominion.  What, 
I  asked  myself,  would  I  have  done  had  Massachusetts 
at  any  time  arrayed  itself  against  the  common  country, 
though  without  my  sympathy  and  assent,  even  as 
Virginia  arrayed  itself  against  the  Union  without  the 
sympathy  and  assent  of  Lee  in  1861  ?  The  question 
gave  me  pause.  And  then  I  must  confess  to  a  sense  of 
the  humor  of  the  situation  coming  over  me,  as  I  found 
it  answered  to  my  hand.  The  case  had  already  arisen; 
the  answer  had  been  given;  nor  had  it  been  given  in 
any  uncertain  tone.  The  dark  and  disloyal  days  of  the 
earlier  years  of  the  century  just  ended  rose  in  memory, 
— the  days  of  the  Embargo,  the  Leopard  and  the  Chesa- 
peake, and  of  the  Hartford  Convention.  The  course 
then  taken  by  those  in  political  control  in  Massachu- 
setts is  recorded  in  history.  It  verged  dangerously  close 
on  that  pursued  by  Virginia  and  the  South  fifty  years 
later:  and  the  quarrel  then  was  foreign;  it  was  no 
domestic  broil.  One  of  my  name,  from  whom  I  claim 
descent,  was  then  prominent  in  public  life.  He  accord- 
ingly was  called  upon  to  make  the  choice  of  Hercules, 
as  later  was  Lee.  He  made  his  choice;  and  it  was  for 
the  common  country  as  against  his  section.  The  result 
is  matter  of  history.  Because  he  was  a  Union  man  and 
held  country  higher  than  State  or  party,  John  Quincy 
Adams  was  in  1808  driven  from  office,  a  successor  to 
him  in  the  United  States  Senate  was  elected  long 
before  the  expiration  of  his  term,  and  he  himself  was 
forced  into  what  at  the  time  was  regarded  as  an  hon- 
orable exile.   Nor  was  the  line  of  conduct  then  by  him 


86  THREE  0>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

pursued  —  that  of  unswerving  loyalty  to  the  Union 
—  ever  forgotten  or  wholly  forgiven.  He  had  put  coun- 
try above  party;  and  party  leaders  have  long  memories. 
Even  so  broad-minded  and  clear-thinking  a  man  as 
Theodore  Parker,  when  delivering  a  eulogy  upon  J.  Q. 
Adams,  forty  years  later,  thus  expressed  himself  of  this 
act  of  supreme  self-sacrifice  and  loyalty  to  Nation  rather 
than  to  State:  "To  my  mind,  that  is  the  worst  act  of 
his  public  life;  I  cannot  justify  it.  I  wish  I  could  find 
some  reasonable  excuse  for  it.  .  .  .  However,  it  must 
be  confessed  that  this,  though  not  the  only  instance  of 
injustice,  is  the  only  case  of  servile  compliance  with  the 
Executive  to  be  found  in  the  whole  life  of  the  man.  It 
was  a  grievous  fault  but  grievously  did  he  answer 
it;  and  if  a  long  life  of  unfaltering  resistance  to  every 
attempt  at  the  assumption  of  power  is  fit  atonement, 
then  the  expiation  was  abundantly  made."1 

What  more,  or  worse,  on  the  other  side,  could  be  said 
of  Lee? 

Perhaps  I  should  enter  some  plea  in  excuse  of  this 
diversion;  but,  for  me,  it  may  explain  itself,  or  go 
unexplained.  Confronted  with  the  question  what  would 
I  have  done  in  1861  had  positions  been  reversed  and 
Massachusetts  taken  the  course  then  taken  by  Vir- 
ginia, I  found  the  answer  already  recorded.  I  would 
have  gone  with  the  Union,  and  against  Massachusetts. 
None  the  less,  I  hold  Massachusetts  estopped  in  the 
case  of  Lee.  "Let  the  galled  jade  wince,  our  withers 
are  un wrung; "  but,  I  submit,  however  it  might  be  with 
me  or  mine,  it  does  not  lie  in  the  mouths  of  the  descend- 
ants of  the  New  England  Federalists  of  the  first  two 
decennials  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  invoke  "the 
avenging  pen  of  History"  to  record  an  adverse  verdict 
1  Works  (London,  1863),  vol.  iv,  pp.  154-156. 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     87 

in  the  case  of  any  son  of  Virginia  who  threw  in  his  lot 
with  his  State  in  1861. 

Thus  much  for  the  choice  of  Hercules.  Pass  on  to 
what  followed.  Of  Robert  E.  Lee  as  the  commander  of 
the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  —  at  once  the  buckler 
and  the  sword  of  the  Confederacy,  —  I  shall  say  few 
words.  I  was  in  the  ranks  of  those  opposed  to  him.  For 
years  I  was  face  to  face  with  some  fragment  of  the  Army 
of  Northern  Virginia,  and  intent  to  do  it  harm;  and 
during  those  years  there  was  not  a  day  when  I  would 
not  have  drawn  a  deep  breath  of  relief  and  satisfaction 
at  hearing  of  the  death  of  Lee,  even  as  I  did  draw  it  at 
hearing  of  the  death  of  Jackson.  But  now,  looking 
back  through  a  perspective  of  nearly  forty  years,  I  glory 
in  it,  and  in  them  as  foes,  —  they  were  worthy  of  the 
best  of  steel.  I  am  proud  now  to  say  that  I  was  their 
countryman.  Whatever  differences  of  opinion  may 
exist  as  to  the  course  of  Lee  when  his  choice  was  made, 
of  Lee  as  a  foe  and  the  commander  of  an  army,  but  one 
opinion  can  be  entertained.  Every  inch  a  soldier,  he 
was  as  an  opponent  not  less  generous  and  humane  than 
formidable,  a  type  of  highest  martial  character;  cau- 
tious, magnanimous  and  bold,  a  very  thunderbolt  in 
war,  he  was  self-contained  in  victory,  but  greatest  in 
defeat.    To  that  escutcheon  attaches  no  stain. 

I  now  come  to  what  I  have  always  regarded  —  shall 
ever  regard  —  as  the  most  creditable  episode  in  all 
American  history,  —  an  episode  without  a  blemish,  — 
imposing,  dignified,  simple,  heroic.  I  refer  to  Appomat- 
tox. Two  men  met  that  day,  representative  of  American 
civilization,  the  whole  world  looking  on.  The  two  were 
Grant  and  Lee,  —  types  each.  Both  rose,  and  rose 
unconsciously,  to  the  full  height  of  the  occasion, — and 
than  that  occasion  there  has  been  none  greater.    About 


88  THREE  <£  B   K  ADDRESSES 

it,  and  them,  there  was  no  theatrical  display,  no  self- 
consciousness,  no  effort  at  effect.  A  great  crisis  was  to 
be  met;  and  they  met  that  crisis  as  great  countrymen 
should.  Consider  the  possibilities;  think  for  a  moment 
of  what  that  day  might  have  been;  you  will  then  see 
cause  to  thank  God  for  much. 

That  month  of  April  saw  the  close  of  exactly  four 
years  of  persistent  strife,  —  a  strife  which  the  whole 
civilized  world  had  been  watching  intently.  Democracy 
—  the  capacity  of  man  in  his  present  stage  of  develop- 
ment for  self-government  —  was  believed  to  be  on  trial. 
The  wish  the  father  to  the  thought,  the  prophets  of 
evil  had  been  liberal  in  prediction.  It  so  chances  that 
my  attention  has  been  especially  drawn  to  the  Euro- 
pean utterances  of  that  time;  and,  read  in  the  clear 
light  of  subsequent  history,  I  use  words  of  moderation 
when  I  say  that  they  are  now  both  inconceivable  and 
ludicrous.  Staid  journals,  grave  public  men  seemed 
to  take  what  was  little  less  than  pleasure  in  pronounc- 
ing that  impossible  of  occurrence  which  was  destined 
soon  to  occur,  and  in  committing  themselves  to  read- 
ings of  the  book  of  fate  in  exact  opposition  to  what  the 
muse  of  history  was  wetting  the  pen  to  record.  Vol- 
umes of  unmerited  abuse  and  false  vaticination  —  and 
volumes  hardly  less  amusing  now  than  instructive  — 
could  be  garnered  from  the  columns  of  the  London 
Times,  —  volumes  in  which  the  spirit  of  contemptuous 
and  patronizing  dislike  sought  expression  in  the  pro- 
foundest  ignorance  of  facts,  set  down  in  bitterest  words. 
Not  only  were  republican  institutions  and  man's  capacity 
for  self-government  on  trial,  but  the  severest  of  sen- 
tences was  imposed  in  advance  of  the  adverse  verdict, 
assumed  to  be  inevitable.  Then,  suddenly,  came  the 
dramatic  climax  at  Appomattox, — dramatic,  I  say,  not 


V SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    89 

theatrical,  —  severe  in  its  simple,  sober,  matter-of-fact 
majesty.  The  world,  I  again  assert,  has  seen  nothing 
like  it;  and  the  world,  instinctively,  was  at  the  time 
conscious  of  the  fact.  I  like  to  dwell  on  the  familiar 
circumstances  of  the  day;  on  its  momentous  outcome; 
on  its  far-reaching  results.  It  affords  one  of  the  greatest 
educational  object-lessons  to  be  found  in  history;  and 
the  actors  were  worthy  of  the  theatre,  the  auditory, 
and  the  play. 

A  mighty  tragedy  was  drawing  to  a  close.  The 
breathless  world  was  the  audience.  It  was  a  bright 
balmy  April  Sunday  in  a  quiet  Virginia  landscape,  with 
two  veteran  armies  confronting  each  other;  one,  game 
to  the  death,  completely  in  the  grasp  of  the  other.  The 
future  was  at  stake.  What  might  ensue  ?  What  might 
not  ensue?  Would  the  strife  end  then  and  there? 
Would  it  die  in  a  death-grapple,  only  to  reappear  in  that 
chronic  form  of  a  vanquished  but  indomitable  people 
writhing  and  struggling  in  the  grasp  of  an  insatiate  but 
only  nominal  victor  ?  Such  a  struggle  as  all  European 
authorities  united  in  confidently  predicting  ? 

The  answer  depended  on  two  men,  —  the  captains 
of  the  contending  forces.  Grant  that  day  had  Lee  at 
his  mercy.  He  had  but  to  close  his  hand,  and  his  op- 
ponent was  crushed.  Think  what  then  might  have  re- 
sulted had  those  two  men  been  other  than  they  were,  — 
had  the  one  been  stern  and  aggressive,  the  other  sullen 
and  unyielding.  Most  fortunately  for  us,  they  were 
what  and  who  they  were,  —  Grant  and  Lee.  More,  I 
need  not,  could  not  say;  this  only  let  me  add,  —  a  peo- 
ple has  good  right  to  be  proud  of  the  past  and  self-con- 
fident of  its  future  when  on  so  great  an  occasion  it  nat- 
urally develops  at  the  front  men  who  meet  each  other 
as  those  two  met  each  other  then.   Of  the  two,  I  know 


90  THREE  <£  B  K  ADDRESSES 

not  to  which  to  award  the  palm.  Instinctively,  uncon- 
sciously, they  vied  not  unsuccessfully  each  with  the 
other,  in  dignity,  magnanimity,  simplicity. 

"Si  fractus  illabatur  orbis 
Impavidum  ferient  ruinae." 

With  a  home  no  longer  his,  Lee  then  sheathed  his 
sword.  With  the  silent  dignity  of  his  subsequent  life, 
after  he  thus  accepted  defeat,  all  are  familiar.  He  left 
behind  him  no  querulous  memoirs,  no  exculpatory  vin- 
dication, no  controversial  utterances.  For  him,  history 
might  explain  itself,  —  posterity  formulate  its  own  ver- 
dict. Surviving  Appomattox  but  a  little  more  than  five 
years,  those  years  were  not  unmarked  by  incidents  very 
gratifying  to  American  recollection ;  for  we  Americans 
do,  I  think,  above  all  things  love  magnanimity,  and  ap- 
preciate action  at  once  fearless  and  generous.  We  all 
remember  how  by  the  grim  mockery  of  fate,  —  as  if  to 
test  to  the  uttermost  American  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment, —  Abraham  Lincoln  was  snatched  away  at  the 
moment  of  crisis  from  the  helm  of  State,  and  Andrew 
Johnson  substituted  for  him.  I  think  it  no  doubtful 
anticipation  of  historical  judgment  to  say  that  a  more 
unfortunate  selection  could  not  well  have  chanced.  In 
no  single  respect,  it  is  satfe  to  say,  was  Andrew  John- 
son adapted  for  the  peculiar  duties  which  Booth's  pistol 
imposed  upon  him.  One  of  Johnson's  most  unhappy, 
most  ill-considered  convictions  was  that  our  Civil  War 
was  a  conventional  old-time  rebellion;  that  rebellion 
was  treason;  that  treason  was  a  crime;  and  that  a 
crime  was  something  for  which  punishment  should  in 
due  course  of  law  be  meted  out.  He,  therefore,  wanted, 
or  thought  he  wanted,  to  have  the  scenes  of  England's 
Convention  Parliament  and  of  the  Restoration  of  1660 
reenacted  here,  a  fitting  sequel  of  our  great  conflict. 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    91 

Most  fortunately,  the  American  people  then  gave  evi- 
dence to  Europe  of  a  capacity  for  self-restraint  and  self- 
government  not  traceable  to  English  parentage,  or 
precedents.  No  Cromwell's  head  grinned  from  our 
Westminster  Hall;  no  convicted  traitor  swung  in  chains; 
no  shambles  dripped  in  blood.  None  the  less  Andrew 
Johnson  called  for  "indictments;"  and,  one  day, 
demanded  that  of  Lee.  Then  outspoke  Grant,  —  Gen- 
eral of  the  Army.  Lee,  he  declared,  was  his  prisoner. 
He  had  surrendered  to  him,  and  in  reliance  on  his  word. 
He  had  received  assurance  that  so  long  as  he  quietly 
remained  at  his  home,  and  did  not  offend  against  the 
law,  he  should  not  be  molested.  He  had  done  so;  and, 
so  long  as  Grant  held  his  commission,  molested  he 
should  not  be.  Needless,  as  pleasant,  to  say  what  Grant 
then  grimly  intimated  did  not  take  place.  Lee  was  not 
molested;  nor  did  the  General  of  the  Army  indignantly 
fling  his  commission  at  an  accidental  President's  feet. 
That,  if  necessary,  he  would  have  so  done,  I  take  to  be 
quite  indubitable. 

Of  Lee's  subsequent  life,  as  head  of  Washington  Col- 
lege, I  have  but  one  incident  to  offer.  I  believe  it  to  be 
typical.  A  few  months  ago  I  received  a  letter  from 
a  retired  army  officer.  It  is  needless  to  give  his  name ; 
but,  from  his  letter,  I  extract  the  following: 

"  Lee  was  essentially  a  Virginian .  His  sword  was  Vir- 
ginia's, and  I  fancy  the  State  had  higher  claims  upon 
him  than  had  the  Confederacy,  just  as  he  supposed  it 
had  than  the  United  States.  But,  after  the  surrender, 
he  stood  firmly  and  unreservedly  in  favor  of  loyalty  to 
the  Nation.  A  gentleman  told  me  this  anecdote:  Asa 
boy  he  ran  away  from  his  Kentucky  home,  and  served 
the  last  two  years  in  the  rebel  ranks.  After  the  war  he 
resumed  his  studies  under  Lee's  presidency;  and,  on 


92  THREE   <*>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

one  occasion,  delivered  as  a  college  exercise  an  oration 
with  eulogistic  reference  to  the  *  Lost  Cause,'  and  what 
it  meant.  Later,  General,  then  President  Lee  sent  for 
the  student;  and,  after  praising  his  composition  and 
delivery,  seriously  warned  him  against  holding  or  ad- 
vancing such  views,  impressing  strongly  upon  him  the 
unity  of  the  Nation,  and  urging  him  to  devote  himself 
loyally  to  maintain  the  integrity  and  the  honor  of  the 
United  States.  The  kindly  paternal  advice  thus  given 
was,  I  imagine,  typical  of  his  whole  post  helium  life." 
Let  this  one  anecdote  suffice.  Here  was  magnanimity, 
philosophy,  true  patriotism:  the  pure  American  spirit. 
Accepting  the  situation  loyally  and  in  a  manly,  silent 
way,  —  without  self -consciousness  or  mental  reserva- 
tion, —  he  sought  by  precept,  and  yet  more  by  a  great 
example,  to  build  up  the  shattered  community  of  which 
he  was  the  most  observed  representative  in  accordance 
with  the  new  conditions  imposed  by  fate.  Talk  of 
traitors  and  of  treason!  The  man  who  pursued  that 
course  and  instilled  that  spirit  had  not,  could  not  have 
had,  in  his  whole  being  one  drop  of  traitor's  blood.  His 
lights  may  have  been  wrong,  —  according  to  our  ideas 
then  and  now  they  were  wrong,  —  but  they  were  his 
lights ;  and  acting,  as  he  acted,  in  full  accordance  with 
them,  he  was  right. 

But,  to  those  thus  speaking,  it  is  since  sometimes 
replied:  "Even  tolerance  may  be  carried  too  far,  and 
is  apt  then  to  verge  dangerously  on  what  may  be  better 
described  as  moral  indifference.  It  then,  humanly 
speaking,  assumes  that  there  is  no  real  right  or  real 
wrong  in  collective  human  action.  But  put  yourself  in 
his  place,  and  to  those  of  this  way  of  thinking  Philip  II 
and  William  of  Orange  —  Charles  I  and  Cromwell  — 
are  much  the  same;  the  one  is  as  good  as  the  other, 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"    93 

provided  only  he  acted  according  to  his  lights.  This 
will  not  do.  Some  moral  test  must  be  applied,  —  some 
standard. of  right  and  wrong. 

"It  is  by  the  recognition  and  acceptance  of  these  that 
men  prominent  in  history  must  be  measured,  and  ap- 
proved or  condemned.  To  call  it  our  Civil  War  is  but 
a  mere  euphemistic  way  of  referring  to  what  was  in  fact 
a  slave-holders'  rebellion,  conceived  and  put  in  action 
for  no  end  but  to  perpetuate  and  extend  a  system  of 
human  servitude,  a  system  the  relic  of  barbarism,  an 
insult  to  advancing  humanity.  To  the  furtherance  of 
this  rebellion  Lee  lent  himself.  Right  is  right,  and  trea- 
son is  treason,  —  and,  as  that  which  is  morally  wrong 
cannot  be  right,  so  treason  cannot  be  other  than  a  crime. 
Why  then  because  of  sentiment  or  sympathy  or  moral 
indifference  seek  to  confound  the  two  ?  Charles  Stuart 
and  Cromwell  could  not  both  have  been  right.  If 
Thomas  was  right,  Lee  was  wrong." 

To  this  I  would  reply,  that  we,  who  take  another 
view,  neither  confound,  nor  seek  to  confound,  right 
with  wrong,  or  treason  with  loyalty.  We  accept  the  ver- 
dict of  time;  but,  in  so  doing,  we  insist  that  the  verdict 
shall  be  in  accordance  with  the  facts,  and  that  each 
individual  shall  be  judged  on  his  own  merits,  and  not 
stand  acquitted  or  condemned  in  block.  In  this  respect 
time  works  wonders,  leaving  few  conclusions  wholly 
unchallenged.  Take,  for  instance,  one  of  the  final  con- 
tentions of  Charles  Sumner,  that,  following  Old  W\>rld 
precedents,  founded,  as  he  claimed  in  reason  and  pa- 
triotism, the  names  of  battles  of  the  war  of  the  rebellion 
should  be  removed  from  the  regimental  colors  of  the 
National  Army,  and  from  the  Army  Register.  He  put 
it  on  the  ground  that,  from  the  republics  of  antiquity 
down  to  our  days,  no  civilized  nation  ever  thought  it 


94  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

wise  or  patriotic  to  preserve  in  conspicuous  and  durable 
form  the  mementos  of  victories  won  over  fellow  citi- 
zens in  civil  war.  As  the  sympathizing  orator  said  at 
the  time  of  Sumner's  death:  "Should  the  son  of 
South  Carolina,  when  at  some  future  day  defending  the 
Republic  against  some  foreign  foe,  be  reminded  by  an 
inscription  on  the  colors  floating  over  him,  that  under 
this  flag  the  gun  was  fired  that  killed  his  father  at  Get- 
tysburg ?"  This  assuredly  has  a  plausible  sound.  "His 
father;"  yes,  perhaps!  Though  even  in  the  immedi- 
ately succeeding  generation  something  might  well  be 
said  on  the  other  side.  Presumably,  in  such  case,  the 
father  was  a  brave,  an  honest,  and  a  loyal  man,  —  con- 
tending for  what  he  believed  to  be  right;  for  it,  laying 
down  his  life.  Gettysburg  is  a  name  and  a  memory  of 
which  none  there  need  ever  feel  ashamed.  As  in  most 
battles,  there  was  a  victor  and  a  vanquished;  but  on 
that  day  the  vanquished,  as  well  as  the  victor,  fought  a 
stout  fight.  If,  in  all  recorded  warfare,  there  is  a  deed 
of  arms  the  name  and  memory  of  which  the  descend- 
ants of  those  who  participated  therein  should  not  wish 
to  see  obliterated  from  any  record,  be  it  historian's  page 
or  battle-flag,  it  was  the  advance  of  Pickett's  Virginian 
division  across  that  wide  valley  of  death  in  front  of 
Cemetery  Ridge.  I  know  in  all  recorded  warfare  of  no 
finer,  no  more  sustained  and  deadly  feat  of  arms.  I 
have  stood  on  either  battlefield,  and,  in  scope  and  de- 
tail, carefully  compared  the  two;  and,  challenging  de- 
nial, I  affirm  that  the  much  vaunted  charge  of  Napo- 
leon's Guard  at  Waterloo,  in  fortitude,  discipline  and 
deadly  energy  will  not  bear  comparison  with  that  other. 
It  was  boys'  work  beside  it.  There,  brave  men  did  all 
that  the  bravest  men  could  do.  Why  then  should  the 
son  of  one  of  those  who  fell  coming  up  the  long  ascent, 


V SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     95 

or  over  our  works  and  in  among  our  guns,  feel  a  sense 
of  wrong  because  "Gettysburg"  is  inscribed  on  the 
flag  of  the  battery  a  gun  of  which  he  now  may  serve  ? 
On  the  contrary,  I  should  suppose  he  would  there  see 
that  name  only. 

But,  supposing  it  otherwise  in  the  case  of  the  son,  — 
the  wound  being  in  such  case  yet  fresh  and  green,  — 
how  would  it  be  when  a  sufficient  time  has  elapsed  to 
afford  the  needed  perspective  ?  Let  us  suppose  a  grand- 
son six  generations  removed.  What  Englishman,  be  he 
Cavalier  or  Roundhead  by  descent,  —  did  his  ancestor 
charge  with  Rupert  or  Cromwell,  —  did  he  fall  while 
riding  with  levelled  point  in  the  grim  wall  of  advancing 
Ironsides,  or  go  hopelessly  down  in  death  beneath  their 
thundering  hoofs,  —  what  descendant  of  any  English- 
man who  there  met  his  end,  but  with  pride  would  read 
the  name  of  Naseby  on  his  regimental  flag?  What 
Frenchman  would  consent  to  the  erasure  of  Ivry  or 
Moncontour?  Thus  in  all  these  matters,  Time  is  the 
great  magician.  It  both  mellows  and  transforms.  The 
Englishman  of  to-day  does  not  apply  to  Cromwell  the 
standard  of  loyalty  or  treason,  of  right  and  wrong,  ap- 
plied after  the  Restoration;  nor  again  does  the  twen- 
tieth century  confirm  the  nineteenth's  verdicts.  Even 
slavery  we  may  come  to  regard  as  a  phase,  pardonable 
as  passing,  in  the  evolution  of  a  race. 

I  hold  it  will  certainly  be  so  with  our  Civil  War.  The 
year  1965  will  look  upon  its  causes,  its  incidents  and 
its  men  with  different  eyes  from  those  with  which  we 
see  them  now,  —  eyes  wholly  different  from  those  with 
which  we  saw  forty  years  ago.  They  —  for  we  by  that 
time  will  have  rejoined  the  generation  to  which  we 
belonged  —  will  recognize  the  somewhat  essential  fact, 
indubitably  true,  that  all  the  honest  conviction,  all  the 


96  THREE   <t>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

loyalty,  all  the  patriotic  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  were 
not  then,  any  more  than  all  the  courage,  on  the  victor's 
side.  True!  the  moral  right,  the  spirit  of  nationality, 
the  sacred  cause  of  humanity  even,  were  on  our  side; 
but,  among  those  opposed,  and  who  in  the  end  went 
down,  were  men  not  less  sincere,  not  less  devoted,  not 
less  truly  patriotic  according  to  their  lights  than  he  who 
among  us  was  first  in  all  those  qualities.  Men  of  whom 
it  was  and  is  a  cause  of  pride  and  confidence  to  say,  — 
"They,  too,  were  countrymen ! " 

Typical  of  those  men  —  most  typical  —  was  Lee. 
He  represented,  individualized,  all  that  was  highest 
and  best  in  the  Southern  mind  and  the  Confederate 
cause,  —  the  loyalty  to  State,  the  keen  sense  of  honor 
and  personal  obligation,  the  slightly  archaic,  the  al- 
most patriarchal,  love  of  dependent,  family  and  home. 
As  I  have  more  than  once  said,  he  was  a  Virginian  of 
the  Virginians.  He  represents  a  type  which  is  gone,  — 
hardly  less  extinct  than  that  of  the  great  English 
nobleman  of  the  feudal  times,  or  the  ideal  head  of  the 
Scotch  clan  of  a  later  period :  but  just  so  long  as  men 
admire  courage,  devotion,  patriotism,  the  high  sense 
of  duty  and  personal  honor,  —  all  in  a  word  which  go 
to  make  up  what  we  know  as  Character,  —  just  so  long 
will  that  type  of  man  be  held  in  affectionate,  reverential 
memory.  They  have  in  them  all  the  elements  of  the 
heroic. 

But  it  is  a  question  of  time;  and  the  time  is,  probably, 
not  quite  yet.  The  wounds  of  the  great  war  are  not  al- 
together healed,  its  personal  memories  are  still  fresh, 
its  passions  not  wholly  allayed.  It  would,  indeed,  be 
a  wonder  if  they  were.  But  I  am  as  convinced  as  an 
unillumined  man  can  be  of  anything  future,  that  when 
such  time  does  come,  a  justice,  not  done  now,  will  be 


"SHALL  CROMWELL  HAVE  A  STATUE?"     97 

done  to  those  descendants  of  Washington  and  of  Jeffer- 
son, of  Rutledge  and  of  Lee  who  stood  opposed  to  us 
in  a  succeeding  generation.  That  the  national  spirit  is 
now  supreme  and  the  nation  cemented,  I  hold  to  be  un- 
questionable. That  property  in  man  has  vanished  from 
the  civilized  world,  is  due  to  our  Civil  War.  The  two 
are  worth  the  great  price  then  paid  for  them.  But,  wrong 
as  he  may  have  been,  and  as  he  was  proved  by  events 
in  these  respects  to  be,  the  Confederate  had  many  great 
and  generous  qualities;  he  also  was  brave,  chivalrous, 
self-sacrificing,  sincere  and  patriotic.  So  I  look  for- 
ward with  confidence  to  the  time  when  they  too  will 
be  represented  in  our  national  pantheon.  Then  the 
query  will  be  answered  here,  as  the  query  in  regard  to 
Cromwell's  statue  put  sixty  years  ago  has  recently 
been  answered  in  England.  The  bronze  effigy  of  Lee, 
mounted  on  his  charger  and  with  the  insignia  of  his 
Confederate  rank,  will  from  its  pedestal  in  the  Na- 
tion's Capitol  look  across  the  Potomac  at  his  old  home 
at  Arlington,  even  as  that  of  Cromwell  dominates  the 
yard  of  Westminster  upon  which  his  skull  once  looked 
down.  When  that  time  comes,  Lee's  monument  will 
be  educational,  —  it  will  typify  the  historical  appre- 
ciation of  all  that  goes  to  make  up  the  loftiest  type  of 
character,  military  and  civic,  exemplified  in  an  oppo- 
nent, once  dreaded  but  ever  respected;  and,  above  all, 
it  will  symbolize  and  commemorate  that  loyal  accept- 
ance of  the  consequences  of  defeat,  and  the  patient 
upbuilding  of  a  people  under  new  conditions  by  consti- 
tutional means,  which  I  hold  to  be  the  greatest  educa- 
tional lesson  America  has  yet  taught  to  a  once  skeptical 
but  now  silenced  world. 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE 
TENDENCIES 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE 
TENDENCIES l 

An  academical  system  without  the  personal  influence  of 
teachers  upon  pupils  is  an  Arctic  winter;  it  will  create  an 
ice-bound,  petrified,  cast-iron  University,  and  nothing  else. 
...  I  have  known  a  time  in  a  great  School  of  Letters  when 
things  went  on  for  the  most  part  by  mere  routine,  and  form 
took  the  place  of  earnestness.  I  have  experienced  a  state  of 
things,  in  which  teachers  were  cut  off  from  the  taught  as  by 
an  insurmountable  barrier;  when  neither  party  entered  into 
the  thoughts  of  the  other;  when  each  lived  by  and  in  itself; 
when  the  tutor  was  supposed  to  fulfil  his  duty  if  he  trotted 
on  like  a  squirrel  in  his  cage,  if  at  a  certain  hour  he  was  in  a 
certain  room,  or  in  hall,  or  in  chapel,  as  it  might  be;  and  the 
pupil  did  his  duty  too  if  he  was  careful  to  meet  his  tutor  in 
that  same  room,  or  hall,  or  chapel,  at  the  same  certain  hour; 
and  when  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  dreamed  of  seeing  each 
other  out  of  lecture,  out  of  chapel,  out  of  academical  gown. 
I  have  known  places  where  a  stiff  manner,  a  pompous  voice, 
coldness  and  condescension  were  the  teacher's  attributes, 
and  where  he  neither  knew  nor  wished  to  know,  and  avowed 
he  did  not  wish  to  know,  the  private  irregularities  of  the 
youths  committed  to  his  charge.  —  J.  H.  Newman,  Uni- 
versity Sketches,  chap.  vi. 

On  occasions  like  the  present  prefatory  remarks  are, 
as  a  rule,  best  dispensed  with.  The  more  directly  the 
matter  for  discourse  is  reached,  the  better  for  all  con- 
cerned. It  so  chances,  however,  that  for  me  personally 
this  particular  occasion  is  exceptional.     In  the  first 

1  An  address  delivered  before  the  Columbia  Chapter  of  the  frater- 
nity of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  at  the  University,  New  York  City,  Tues- 
day, June  12,  1906. 


102  THREE  <S>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

place,  this  is  my  fiftieth  year  since  graduation;  and, 
as  no  similar  anniversary  has  preceded  it,  none  like  it 
will  follow.  The  classes  of  1856  now  gather  each  to  its 
Alma  Mater,  and  from  the  scant  and  furrowed  rem- 
nants the  cry  goes  up  —  morituri  te  salufant!  But,  in 
the  second  place,  I  individually  have  another  message 
to  deliver  —  a  species  of  valedictory.  I  claim,  there- 
fore, the  privilege  of  a  preliminary  word,  at  once  ex- 
planatory and  justificative. 

Not  what  is  known  as  an  educationalist,  I  purpose 
to-day  to  discuss  grave  educational  problems.  The 
views  I  am  about  to  advance  are  moreover  somewhat 
at  variance  with  those  at  this  time  usually  accepted; 
and,  though  radical  in  their  way,  are  in  some  respects 
reactionary.  So,  knowing  by  experience  how  thor- 
oughly equipped  those  are  with  whom  I  must  neces- 
sarily be  brought  in  conflict,  I  want  the  why  and  the 
wherefore  of  what  I  say  to  be  clearly  premised. 

The  late  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  once,  when  reading  a 
paper  on  some  ethical  topic,  observed  at  the  threshold, 
"I  wish  to  suggest  certain  considerations  which  may, 
perhaps,  be  worth  taking  into  account;  and,  as  I  must 
speak  briefly,  I  must  not  attempt  to  supply  all  the 
necessary  qualifications.  I  can  only  attempt  to  indicate 
what  seems  to  me  to  be  the  correct  point  of  view,  and 
apologize  if  I  appear  to  speak  too  dogmatically,  simply 
because  I  cannot  waste  time  by  expressions  of  diffi- 
dence, by  reference  to  probable  criticisms,  or  even  by 
a  full  statement  of  my  own  reasons."  So,  in  the  present 
case,  with  no  disposition  to  dogmatize,  I  even  entertain 
grave  doubts  whether  many  of  the  propositions  I  am 
about  to  advance  are  altogether  tenable;  none  the  less, 
I  shall  advance  them  as  clearly  and  positively  as  I  can 
for  what  they  are  worth,  leaving  it  to  others  to  supply 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     103 

words  of  hesitancy.  I  also  crave  a  moment's  patience 
while  I  briefly  set  forth  the  reason  why,  a  confessed 
layman,  I  am  here  at  all. 

In  doing  this  I  fear  I  must  make  a  too  frequent  use 
of  what  in  the  dictionaries  is  defined  as  the  nominative 
case  of  the  pronoun  of  the  first  person ;  for,  as  the  views 
about  to  be  advanced  are  largely  based  on  personal 
experience,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  so  doing  could  be 
avoided.  At  best  the  effort  to  avoid  it  would  necessarily 
involve  such  clumsy  as  well  as  frequent  circumlocu- 
tions that  acceptance  at  the  outset  of  the  charge  of 
egoism  is  manifestly  the  lesser  evil. 

Close  upon  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  that  is,  in 
June,  1882,  I  was  chosen  by  the  alumni  of  Harvard  a 
member  of  its  Board  of  Overseers.  The  term  of  service 
on  that  board  is  six  years,  and  I  have  since  been  three 
times  in  like  manner  honored.  The  close  of  my  fourth 
term  is  near;  and,  with  its  close,  my  official  connection 
with  the  University  ceases.  My  personal  interest  in  it 
will,  of  course,  continue.  Looking  back  on  those  twenty- 
four  years  of  service  as  continuous  as  the  law  allows, 
certain  conclusions  have,  I  find,  gradually  crystallized 
in  my  mind;  and  I  am  not  unwilling  to  avail  myself  of 
this  opportunity  to  set  them  forth.  Wholly  the  result 
of  personal  experience,  and  of  observation  from  a  some- 
what external  point  of  view,  they  can  at  most  be  merely 
an  individual's  contribution  to  an  endless,  but  always 
interesting,  debate.   As  such  they  are  offered. 

Looking  back  then  over  the  two  periods,  the  half  cen- 
tury since  graduation,  and  the  four  and  twenty  years 
since  I  first  took  my  seat  as  a  Harvard  Overseer,  I  find 
myself,  as  is  not  unusually  the  case,  by  no  means  in 
complete  accord  with  results,  —  nay  more,  as  already 
intimated,  I  find  myself  somewhat  of  a  reactionist.    In 


104  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

no  degree  an  admirer  of  things  that  were,  I  am,  if  pos- 
sible, still  less  disposed  to  rest  in  all  respects  content  with 
what  is.  My  testimony  is  merely  that  of  an  observer, — 
an  observer  who  is  neither  an  optimist  nor  a  pessimist, 
though,  perhaps,  inclined  to  be  otherwise-minded. 

I  am  about  to  speak,  be  it  also  remembered,  not  of 
the  university  but  of  the  college,  —  the  period  not  of 
professional  but  of  academic  training,  the  four  years 
which,  half  a  century  since,  intervened  between  the 
seventeen  and  twenty-one  of  life,  and  which  now  in- 
tervene between  the  eighteen  and  twenty-two.  As  re- 
spects this  period,  —  the  more  essentially  formative 
period  of  life,  —  the  two  noticeable  college  changes 
which  have  come  about  within  the  half-century  have 
been  the  great  increase  in  the  number  of  students  as 
well  as  of  institutions,  and,  so  far  as  Harvard  is  con- 
cerned, the  adoption  and  consistent  following-out  of  the 
elective  system  in  studies.  In  the  beneficial  results  of 
both  I  was  once  a  believer :  but,  as  time  has  gone  on 
and  I  have  observed  the  younger  generation,  more  and 
more  doubt  has  arisen  in  my  mind ;  until  now  I  have 
become  satisfied  that,  as  respects  numbers,  a  thorough 
reorganization  of  the  whole  college  system  is  necessary; 
while,  as  respects  the  elective  system,  I  am  equally 
clear  a  reaction  is  both  impending  and  desirable. 

First,  as  to  numbers  and  the  college  organization. 
The  Harvard  class  of  which  I  was  a  member  appears 
in  the  Quinquennial  Catalogue  with  ninety-two  names, 
the  largest  number  recorded  up  to  that  time.  The  col- 
lege then  reported  three  hundred  and  twenty  students 
in  all.  To-day,  fifty  years  later,  the  graduating  class 
numbers  two  hundred  and  forty-two,  and  the  aca- 
demic department  of  the  University  —  Harvard  Col- 
lege proper  —  last  year  reported  more  than  two  thou- 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     105 

sand  students.  It  is  matter  of  common  knowledge  that, 
in  this  respect,  the  experience  of  Harvard  has  been  in 
no  way  peculiar.  Brown,  Amherst,  Williams,  Tufts 
and  Dartmouth  each  number  from  three  hundred  and 
seventy-nine  to  nine  hundred  undergraduates,  all  ex- 
ceeding in  size  the  Harvard  of  1856  —  Williams  by 
forty  per  cent.,  Tufts  by  eighteen  per  cent.  The  criti- 
cism I  have  to  offer,  in  so  far  as  it  is  either  just  or 
erroneous,  is,  therefore,  applicable  to  all  our  colleges. 
Whether  this  great  increase  both  in  students  and  in 
institutions  is  desirable,  I  do  not  purpose  to  inquire. 
Very  possibly  it  is  not.  It  may  perhaps  be  merely  an- 
other form  of  waste  of  force,  many  youths  going,  or 
being  sent,  to  college,  who  are  in  no  way  fitted  to  de- 
rive advantage  therefrom.  The  attempted  conversion 
of  sows'  ears  into  silk  purses  is  proverbially  unfruitful 
as  an  industry;  in  the  present  case,  it  is  also,  I  have 
sometimes  thought,  open  to  grave  criticism  as  a  prac- 
tical misapplication  of  an  endowment.  Conceivably 
even  institutions  of  the  more  advanced  education  may 
have  an  eye  to  bigness  of  competitive  output;  and,  if 
such  a  view,  however  loudly  disavowed,  prevails,  quan- 
tity will  surely  take  precedence  of  quality.  The  tempta- 
tion undeniably  exists.  Passing  this  by,  however,  and 
coming  directly  to  my  point,  all  subsequent  observa- 
tion tells  me  that  the  Harvard  College  system  of  fifty 
years  ago  —  the  distinctly  American  collegiate  system 
—  was  already  in  my  time  outgrown,  and  in  essentials 
radically  defective.  Further,  I  find  myself  led  to  believe 
that  the  condition  of  affairs,  in  this  respect  bad  then, 
has  since  grown  steadily  worse.  The  whole  situation 
I  am  persuaded  to-day  stands  in  crying  need  of  reform; 
and  yet  how  to  reform  it  is,  I  confess,  a  problem  most 
difficult  of  solution.    Let  me  state  the  case. 


106  THREE  <S>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

At  Harvard,  as  elsewhere  in  the  American  colleges, 
we  still  adhere  to  the  old  organization,  —  the  four 
classes,  from  freshman  to  senior.  But,  fifty  years  ago, 
each  of  the  four  classes  was  a  unit.  Following  the  sec- 
ondary school  system,  a  class  was  divided  into  divisions 
which,  during  the  first  two  years  of  the  course,  recited, 
or  attended  lectures,  together;  and,  subsequently,  dur- 
ing the  last  two  years,  —  the  junior  and  senior  years, 
—  when  the  choice  of  electives  was  to  a  certain  extent 
permitted,  the  divisions  in  electives  were  limited  to  the 
class,  the  members  of  which  thus  entered  college,  went 
through  it,  and  graduated  together.  Naturally,  a  class 
feeling,  more  or  less  strong,  resulted.  In  those  days 
each  classmate  knew  every  classmate,  and  could  ad- 
dress him  by  name.  As  late  as  1870,  and  the  advent  of 
Dr.  Eliot  to  the  presidency,  the  traditional  organiza- 
tion was  not  wholly  outgrown,  although  a  maximum 
of  development  had  for  some  time  been  reached.  The 
college  had  become  unwieldy.  Even  before  1850  the 
contact  between  the  instructor  and  the  individual  stu- 
dent was  less  than  it  had  formerly  been,  —  far  less  than 
it  should  be.  Still,  up  to  about  1870,  every  instructor 
had  a  more  or  less  definite  opinion  of  every  student  who 
recited  to  him;  and  every  student  had  a  clearly  defined 
judgment  as  to  every  instructor.  The  personal  relation 
between  instructor  and  student  was,  however,  even 
then  only  theoretical.  The  influence  of  contact  was 
conspicuously  lacking.  For  purpose  of  illustration  let 
me  appeal  to  my  own  experience. 

In  college  days  I  was  about  an  average  student. 
Standing  high  in  only  one  or  two  courses,  I  was  an 
omnivorous  reader;  and,  as  I  now  clearly  see,  stood 
greatly  in  need  of  friendly  counsel  and  sympathetic 
guidance.  Of  it  I  got  absolutely  none.  Once  only  dur- 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     107 

ing  my  entire  college  life  do  I  remember  coming  in  con- 
tact, except  incidentally  and  in  the  most  conventional 
way,  with  an  instructor.  The  result  did  not  tend  to  edi- 
fication. It  was  early  in  my  junior  year.  My  record  up 
to  that  time  was  neither  good  nor  bad.  I  had  to  a  large 
extent  idled  away  my  time,  giving  no  great  attention  to 
my  studies,  and  indulging  freely  in  what  would  now, 
I  suppose,  be  termed  my  elective  aptitudes,  —  in  other 
words  following  the  lines  of  least  resistance.  As  the 
result  of  a  certain  approach  to  sober  reflection  I  at  last 
determined  to  take  advice,  and,  perhaps,  do  better,  — 
in  other  words,  becoming  more  or  less  what  was  known 
as  "  a  dig,"  I  thought  to  go  in  for  rank.  With  this  highly 
commendable  end  in  view  I  had  recourse  to  a  pro- 
minent college  official.  An  elderly  man  and  a  remote 
connection  of  mine,  he  was  famed  for  shrewdness  and 
practical  good  sense.  Knowing  my  family  well,  he 
knew  me  a  little.  Very  clearly  do  I  recall  that  interview, 
—  the  room,  the  face,  the  words  that  passed.  I  came 
for  counsel;  my  reception  was  kindly.  I  put  the  case, 
and  asked  for  advice.  I  purposed  to  be  more  studious 
than  I  had  been ;  what  suggestion  had  the  guide,  philo- 
sopher and  friend  to  offer?  "Well,  Adams,"  came 
forth  the  slow  response  in  friendly  tone,  "you  are  just 
about  the  middle  of  the  class,  and  you  stand  quite  high 
in  one  department;  placed  as  you  are,  I  would  n't 
bother  much  about  rank  in  a  general  way.  If  you  retain 
your  position  in  that  course,  it  will  put  you  at  gradua- 
tion in  the  first  half  of  the  class;  and  that's  all  you 
want ! "  That  single  word  of  counsel  from  that  quarter 
proved  in  my  case  conclusive.  All  further  thought  of 
application  was  dismissed;  and,  thereafter,  I  aban- 
doned myself  implicitly  to  the  lines  of  least  resistance. 
The  experience  was,  I  believe,  typical.   So  far  as  in- 


108  THREE  0>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

fluence  on  the  individual,  as  between  instructor  and 
student,  —  master  and  disciple  in  theory,  —  so  far, 
I  say,  as  this  great  factor  in  all  high  education  was  con- 
cerned, our  college  system  was  outgrown  and  wrong 
then,  I  know;  my  observation  tells  me  it  has  in  this 
respect  been  going  steadily  from  bad  to  wor-se  ever 
since.  What  was  the  system  then?  What  is  it  now? 
The  college  or  academic  period,  —  the  years  between 
seventeen  and  twenty-one,  in  1850,  as  between  eighteen 
and  twenty-two,  in  1900,  —  this  period  between  school 
and  profession  is  distinctly  formative;  during  it  the 
average  human  nature  is  in  its  most  plastic  state,  and 
peculiarly  subject  to  influence,  good  or  bad.  Under 
our  American  college  system,  what  is  done  for  our  youth 
during  that  period  ?  Fifty  years  ago  the  boy  was  taken 
from  school  at  seventeen,  and  sent  to  Harvard.  Up 
to  that  time  of  great  change  he  had  lived  at  home,  sub- 
ject to  what  is  known  as  home  influence,  certainly  to 
home  supervision;  and  he  had  attended  school.  The 
discipline  was  constant  and  rigid ;  the  instructor  knew 
every  boy  in  the  class;  every  boy  was,  so  to  speak, 
"sized,"  and  his  place  assigned  to  him  both  in  the  esti- 
mation of  others  and  in  his  own.  He  was  then  suddenly 
projected  into  a  new  life;  and,  thereafter,  left  abso- 
lutely to  form  himself.  All  external  individual  direction 
was  removed.  The  impress  of  the  elder  and  riper  mind 
upon  the  younger  and  less  mature  was  absent.  Not  even 
an  effort  was  made  to  supply  the  want.  The  idea  of  such 
a  want  on  one  side  or  function  on  the  other  found  no 
place. 

For  purposes  of  contrast,  let  me  cite  a  case.  A  num- 
ber of  years  ago  I  had  occasion  to  prepare  a  memoir  of 
the  younger  Richard  Henry  Dana,  the  author  of  Two 
Years  before  the  Mast.    A  noticeable  man  in  almost 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     109 

every  way,  in  some  respects  Mr.  Dana  was  gifted  with 
genius.  In  the  course  of  his  student  life  at  Harvard  he 
had,  quite  unconsciously,  occasion  to  illustrate  by  his 
experience  the  deficiency  of  the  system  just  referred  to. 
It  was  in  1831,  when  the  classes  at  Harvard,  averaging 
some  sixty  in  number,  had  not  yet  swollen  to  the  point 
that  did  away  with  individuality.  Entering  college  at 
the  age  of  sixteen,  as  the  result  of  one  of  those  extremely 
ridiculous  rebellions  which  distinguished  the  Quincy 
presidency,  young  Dana  had  the  great  good  fortune  to 
be  "  rusticated,"  as  the  phrase  then  went,  for  a  term. 
Of  an  impressionable  nature,  he  passed  his  months  of 
enforced  absence  from  Cambridge  at  Andover  study- 
ing with  the  Rev.  Leonard  Woods,  subsequently 
president  of  Bowdoin  College.  Thereafter  Mr.  Dana 
always  accounted  that  provoked  but  silly  college  re- 
bellion, and  the  "  rustication "  consequent  thereon, 
—  the  being  sent  away  from  Cambridge  in  presumable 
disgrace,  —  as  one  of  the  fortunate  incidents  of  life, 
bringing  him  as  it  did  for  months  at  a  most  receptive 
age  in  close  moral  and  intellectual  contact  with  a  really 
superior  man.  President  Woods  was  then  but  four  and 
twenty  years  of  age,  and  a  resident  licentiate  of  the 
Andover  Theological  Seminary.  Long  afterwards, 
Dana  wrote  of  his  preceptor  that  he  was  "an  indefat- 
igable and  enthusiastic  student,  with  a  heart  full  of 
noble  and  kind  sentiments,  with  a  manner  which  won 
the  confidence  and  love  of  all,  with  remarkable  purity 
of  spirit,  free  from  prejudice,  opinionativeness  and 
exclusiveness."  Here  was  a  truly  suggestive  experi- 
ence, conspicuously  absent  from  Harvard  possibilities 
whether  of  that  period  or  of  this. 

Conditions  in  this  respect  have,  as  I  have  said,  not 
improved  with  time;  though  greatly  changed  they  have, 


110  THREE   4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

on  the  contrary,  in  some  respects,  grown  distinctly 
worse.  Recognizing  the  facts  of  the  situation  and  the 
consequent  need,  efforts  at  reform  have,  I  am  well 
aware,  been  from  time  to  time  attempted.  Advisers  of 
undergraduates  have  been  provided;  a  system  of  as- 
sistants coming  into  more  immediate  contact  with  the 
students  has  been  developed.1  The  special  and  advanced 
courses  have  also  been  vastly  multiplied;  and  the  stu- 
dents who  take  those  courses  are  necessarily,  so  far  as 
the  particular  course  is  concerned,  brought  in  imme- 
diate contact  with  the  professor.  All  this  goes  without 
saying.  But  I  am  not  now  discussing  individual  cases 
or  special  courses;  my  reference  is  to  the  general  situa- 
tion, —  the  average  student  and  the  standard  course. 
Taking  then  the  run  of  the  undergraduates  of  the  pre- 
sent time  as  I  have  met  them  in  my  own  family  or  in 
the  offspring  of  my  classmates  and  friends,  my  impres- 
sion is  distinct  that  these  attempts  at  an  adaptation  of 
the  old  garment  to  the  new  body  have  been  somewhat 
of  the  patchwork  order;  and,  consequently,  tend  to 
supply  a  fresh  illustration  only  of  the  truth  of  that 
scriptural  adage,  which,  in  the  Revised  Version,  reads 
thus:  "And  no  man  putteth  a  piece  of  undressed  cloth 
upon  an  old  garment;  for  that  which  should  fill  it  up 
taketh  from  the  garment,  and  a  worse  rent  is  made." 
In  other  words,  the  gulf  which  divides  the  usual  college 
instructor  from  the  average  undergraduate  is  even 
more  impassable' in  1906  than  it  was  in  1854.  That 
there  should  now  be  less  objective  study  of  the  indi- 
vidual —  his  aptitudes,  his  deficiencies  and  his  re- 
quirements —  than  there  was  then  would  scarcely  be 
possible;  for  then  there  was  none  at  all:  but  now,  the 
increase  of  the  student  body  has  been  such  that,  in 
1  But  see  infra,  pp.  161,  169,  170. 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     111 

case  of  the  mass,  what  opportunity  at  all  is  there  for 
it  ?  *  The  lecture  has  taken  the  place  of  the  recitation. 
Except  in  certain  advanced  or  limited  courses  and  with 
individual  students  following  a  specialty,  the  periodical 
examination  paper  is  the  nearest  approach  to  personal 
contact.  The  average  undergraduate  is  merely  one 
unit  in  an  impersonal  mob.  Of  the  elective  system  I 
purpose  to  speak  presently;  in  this  connection  it  is 
merely  necessary  to  say  that,  as  now  in  use,  it  plays  into 
the  general  scheme,  rounding  out  its  imperfections.  It 
supplements  its  deficiencies.    What  is  the  result  ? 

Take  the  average  boy  of  to-day  —  my  son  or  yours 
—  consider  the  college  career  open  to  him.  He  is  now 
apt  to  go  to  Cambridge,  or  New  Haven,  not  from  home 
influences,  but  from  the  preparatory  school,  —  the 
academy.  So  far,  my  observation  leads  me  to  believe 
the  tendency  to  change  has  been  distinctly  beneficial. 
The  streets  of  our  modern  cities  are  not  edifying  as  the 
place  for  resort  of  boys  during  the  play  hours,  nor  has 
home  supervision  tended  to  become  more  rigid  or  even 
wiser  as  the  years  have  passed.  The  equalizing  influ- 
ence of  the  preparatory  school  is  good;  and  it  is  good 

1  An  intelligent  movement  to  make  good  this  great,  and  growing, 
deficiency  has  recently  been  inaugurated  at  Princeton  by  President 
Woodrow  Wilson.  It  has  been  briefly  described,  and  from  time  to 
time  discussed  in  the  columns  of  the  daily  press.  Six  months  sub- 
sequent to  the  delivery  of  this  address,  in  December,  1906,  President 
Wilson  made  a  somewhat  extended  reference  to  the  "  preceptorial 
system  "  in  his  annual  report.  (Infra,  pp.  138, 139.)  It  has  not,  how- 
ever, yet  been  sufficiently  long  in  operation  to  be  finally  pronounced 
a  success,  or  otherwise.  Briefly  stated,  the  scheme  looks  to  "the 
dividing-up  of  the  students  into  little  coteries,  each  one  of  which  is 
under  the  direct  care  of  a  preceptor.  And  these  preceptors  are  not 
men  who  graduated  last  year  and  have  been  appointed  instructors ; 
they  are  rather  specialists  who  have  passed  through  the  experiences 
of  perhaps  ten  years  out  of  college,  and  are  competent  to  weigh  the 
value  of  authorities  with  a  mature  judgment." 


112  THREE  <P  B   K  ADDRESSES 

just  to  the  degree  in  which  supervision  is  constant,  and 
discipline  wise  in  strictness.  The  contact  between  mas- 
ter and  pupil  is  homelike  and  healthful;  the  immature 
and  the  more  mature  rub  against  each  other.  The  at- 
trition is  unavoidable;  its  effects,  unconscious. 

And  the  boy  suddenly  goes  to  college !  What  greater 
change  can  be  imagined?  From  an  existence  subject 
to  unceasing  supervision,  he  passes  to  one  of  extreme 
freedom ;  from  daily  contact  with  the  more  mature,  he 
becomes  a  lecture-room  unit;  from  a  system  of  studies 
carefully  prescribed,  he  is  invited  to  take  his  choice 
from  a  bewildering  assortment  of  electives;  in  place 
of  an  intelligent  guidance,  he  is  thrown  roughly  back 
on  his  own  untutored  judgment.  Such  a  system  I  hold 
to  be  radically  wrong.  An  outgrowth  of  something 
suitable  enough  for  an  earlier  and  a  simpler  period,  it 
is  in  no  way  adapted  to  modern  conditions.  Released 
from  the  preparatory  school  the  boy  is  turned  out,  and 
left,  so  to  speak,  to  browse  around  at  his  own  sweet 
will;  and  this  too  at  a  period  when  his  judgment  is  most 
immature,  when  he  least  understands  himself  or  knows 
the  world,  when  all  the  hard  lessons  of  life  are  yet  to  be 
learned. 

Nor,  according  to  my  observation,  does  the  small 
institution  —  the  back-woods  academy  and  the  fresh- 
water college  —  offer  a  desirable  alternative.  Dis- 
tinctly it  does  not  solve  the  problem;  quite  the  reverse, 
it  complicates  it.  If  the  young  man  is  to  live  in  the  city, 
is  it  quite  wise  to  bring  him  up  in  the  country's  sweet 
seclusion?  Moreover,  the  small  college  of  to-day  is 
larger  than  the  Harvard  of  fifty  years  ago,  and  the  same 
outgrown  system  is  there  in  vogue.  The  possibilities  of 
instruction  are  not  so  great;  the  educational  contact 
of  man  on  man  among  equals  is  less;  and  the  great 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     113 

traditions  and  associations,  so  immensely  valuable  and 
appreciated  in  later  life,  are,  comparatively  speaking, 
absent.  I  may  criticise  the  Harvard  College  of  fifty 
years  ago;  I  may  point  out  its  present  short-comings; 
but,  none  the  less,  a  very  solid  satisfaction  exists  for 
me  in  the  consciousness  that  I  am  a  Harvard  man. 
There  is  a  good  deal  in  the  Tower-stamp.  I  dare  say 
in  Great  Britain  there  are  very  excellent  educational 
institutions  at  Manchester  or  at  Paisley;  none  the  less 
I  should  much  prefer  being  an  Oxonian  or  a  Cantab. 
So  with  us. 

I  have  set  forth  what  was,  and  suggested  what  is. 
In  place  of  either,  the  ideal  college  organization  is  not 
difficult  to  outline;  but,  besides  a  decided  lack  of  faith 
in  ideals,  I  recognize  fully  the  practical  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  attaining  their  fulfilment.  In  the  case  of 
Harvard,  none  the  less,  I  would,  were  it  in  my  power, 
discontinue  absolutely,  and  wholly  break  up,  the  tra- 
ditional academic  system.  Harvard  College,  save  in 
name  and  continuity,  should  cease  to  exist.  In  place  of 
it  I  would  have  a  group  of  colleges,  all  independent,  at 
the  head  of  each  of  which  should  be  a  master,  —  if 
you  like  a  president.  Those  colleges  should  be  so  limited 
in  size  that  individuality  would  be  not  only  possible 
but  a  necessary  part  of  the  system.  The  master  should 
know  every  student.  Instructors  and  students  should 
constitute  a  large  household  under  several  roofs  and 
with  common  grounds;  independence  and  individual- 
ity under  suitable  restrictions  should  be  the  under- 
lying motive.  The  university  with  its  elaborate  ma- 
chinery of  instruction  would  then  come  into  play  to 
supplement  college  instruction.  The  university  pro- 
fessors would  teach;  and  the  students  of  each  college, 
under  the  supervision  and  by  the  advice  of  the  master 


114  THREE  3>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

of  the  college,  would  select  their  courses.  The  system 
of  general  university  electives  would  be  combined  with 
prescribed  home  courses  in  each  individual  college. 
The  master  would  give  tone  and  character  to  his  col- 
lege, and  to  each  individual  student  in  it.  The  final 
degree,  bearing  the  name  and  seal  of  Harvard,  would 
be  conferred  as  the  result  of  examinations  in  common, 
all  the  colleges  competing. 

Such  is  my  ideal  of  a  system  to  replace  the  present 
and  traditional  system,  and  make  good  its  glaring 
deficiencies.  The  obstacles  in  the  way  of  its  realization, 
however,  loom  large.  Harvard  is  a  growth,  —  a  growth 
of  close  upon  three  centuries.  Its  halls,  its  grounds,  its 
location,  its  endowments,  its  organization,  and,  more 
and  most  of  all,  its  traditions,  are  obstacles  well-nigh 
insurmountable.  The  additional  cost  also  of  such  a 
system  as  that  outlined,  though  it  would  vary  accord- 
ing to  colleges,  would,  at  lowest,  be  comparatively  large. 
Each  college  would,  it  is  true,  establish  its  own  tuition 
fee,  as  secondary  schools  now  do,  and  thereby  a  great 
present  defect  would  be  removed ;  for  Harvard  now  has 
one  fee  for  all,  —  rich  or  poor,  —  a  most  inequitable 
equality.  Under  an  independent  college  system,  at  once 
elastic  and  individual,  but  culminating  in  a  common 
and  uniform  result,  anything  and  everything  might  be 
anticipated,  —  the  endowed  and  free  college,  the  col- 
lege with  scholarships,  the  college  of  moderate  cost,  or 
finally,  the  college  of  millionaires.  All,  however,  would 
be  subject  to  the  supervision  of  the  Board  of  Overseers, 
acting  as  the  Grand  Inquest  of  the  university;  and  all 
would  be  judged  by  the  common  test,  the  conferring 
of  the  university  degree. 

I  have  referred  to  the  course  of  studies  to  be  pursued 
in  the  ideal  college,  —  the  prescribed  courses  and  the 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     115 

electives.  All  would  be  under  the  immediate  advice 
and  impulse  of  the  master,  necessarily  of  more  mature 
judgment,  acting  on  personal  knowledge  of  the  indi- 
vidual student,  —  his  aptitudes,  his  deficiencies  and 
his  environment;  and  this  naturally  brings  me  to  the 
remaining,  and  much  the  more  important  part  of  my 
theme.  I  refer  to  the  elective  system,  so-called,  in  its 
present  stage  of  development  and  application,  so  far 
at  least  as  Harvard  is  concerned.  And  here  I  may  as 
well  at  once  blurt  out  a  confession  of  faith.  Briefly, 
speaking  from  personal  experience  of  which  I  know, 
and  from  observation  both  long  and  patient,  I  have 
come  to  regard  the  elective  system  in  its  present  form 
of  development  as  an  educational  fad,  and  a  very  mis- 
chievous one.  As  such,  I  do  not  believe  in  it;  nor  have 
I  any  faith  in  its  outcome  until,  as  an  educational  pro- 
cess, it  has  been  reconsidered  and  placed  on  a  new  basis, 
radically  different  from  that  now  in  use.  I  am  quite 
well  aware  such  a  conclusion  as  that  just  expressed  is 
at  present  hardly  conceivable  among  educators,  at  least 
those  in  my  immediate  environment.  It  is  in  their  eyes 
much  as  if  doubt  were  expressed  of  the  Copernican 
system,  or  the  multiplication  table  were  challenged; 
all  the  same,  I  doubt,  and  I  challenge.  I  am  here  also 
to  set  forth  the  reason  for  the  faith,  or  lack  of  faith, 
that  is  in  me. 

Let  me,  in  the  first  place,  clearly  define  my  position ; 
for,  though  misrepresentation  is  of  course,  I  do  not 
want  to  be  misunderstood,  unless  intentionally.1  I  have 
said  that  I  am  a  disbeliever  in  the  elective  system,  so- 
called,  as  at  present  developed  and  applied;  and  I  may 
add  I  am  no  more  a  believer  in  it  as  developed  and 
applied  fifty  years  ago.  In  the  fundamental  idea  of  an 
1  Supra,  pp.  14,  39. 


116  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

elective  system,  that  of  individuality  and  the  cultivation 
of  aptitudes,  I  have  firm  faith;  but  that  idea  finds 
poor  expression  through  the  system  now  in  use,  an 
expression  in  my  judgment  crude,  ill-considered,  thor- 
oughly unscientific,  and  extremely  mischievous.  And 
now,  speaking  again  from  experience  and  observation, 
in  what  I  have  to  say  I  must  make  even  more  frequent 
use  than  heretofore  of  the  personal  pronoun. 

My  understanding  of  the  argument  in  favor  of  the 
elective  system,  both  in  its  earlier  form  of  fifty  years 
back  and  its  more  fully  developed  phase  at  present,  is 
that,  recognizing  individuality,  it  gives  scope  and  play 
to  aptitude.  The  field  of  human  knowledge  has  also 
been  of  recent  years  vastly  extended,  and  its  products 
so  diversified  and  again  differentiated,  that  a  smaller 
and  yet  smaller  portion  only  can  be  covered  even  by 
the  most  ambitious  intellect,  and,  hence,  selection  is 
necessary.1  So,  fifty  years  ago,  and  in  yet  greater  de- 
gree now,  the  youth  of  eighteen  was  let  loose  in  this 
vast  and  diversified  pasture-ground,  and  told  to  make 
his  selection,  consulting  his  aptitudes.  The  system  thus 
presupposes  that  the  average  youth  of  eighteen,  fresh 
from  school,  has  defined  aptitudes,  and  not  only  un- 
derstands himself,  but  can  be  depended  on  to  select 
judiciously.  I  may  have  thought  so  once;  but  I  was 
very  young.  I  am  older  now,  and  I  make  bold,  as  the 
result  both  of  experience,  and  somewhat  bitter  experi- 
ence, and  of  observation,  and  somewhat  extended  ob- 
servation, to  challenge  both  premises  and  conclusion. 

In  the  first  place,  I  wholly  deny  that  the  average 
youth  of  eighteen  has  any  well-defined  or  clearly  de- 
veloped aptitudes;  or,  having  them,  that  he  is  at  that 
age  well  qualified,  or,  indeed,  in  any  sufficient  degree 
1  Supra,  p.  11. 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES     117 

qualified,  to  judge  of  them,  or  of  the  training  most  cal- 
culated to  their  more  perfect  development.  I  distinctly 
and  most  definitely  know,  and  now  sadly  recognize  the 
fact,  that  it  was  not  so  in  my  case;  it  was  not  so  in  the 
case  of  any  of  my  brothers  or  of  my  sons;  it  has  not 
been  so  in  the  case  of  any  single  person  who  has  chanced 
to  come  within  my  range  of  close  observation.  That 
I,  and  that  every  one  of  those  I  have  thus  referred  to, 
had  a  certain  degree  of  individuality,  and  could  do 
some  things  far  more  readily  than  I,  or  they,  could  do 
other  things,  goes  without  saying;  but  that  the  average 
youth  of  eighteen  has  distinctly  defined  aptitudes,  or 
any  clear  apprehension  of  how  his  faculties  as  a  whole 
should  be  brought  into  play  and  trained  to  the  proper 
development  of  those  aptitudes,  I  know  positively  to 
have  been  the  reverse  of  correct  in  my  own  case,  and 
I  have,  moreover,  never  known  a  case  in  which  it  was 
correct.  That  the  elective  idea  was  an  improvement, 
and  a  great  advance  on  the  educational  Procrustes-bed 
system  which  preceded  it,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  deny. 
On  the  contrary,  I  fully  and  unreservedly  concede  it. 
But,  in  itself,  as  yet  developed,  and  as  a  final  result,  I 
find  myself  compelled  to  repeat,  I  regard  it  as  crude, 
ill-considered,  thoroughly  unscientific,  and  extremely 
mischievous.  It  recognizes  only  liberty;  and  liberty, 
though  much,  is  not  all.  Like  most  other  things  liberty 
is  liable  to  abuse  as  well  as  misapplication;  and  any- 
thing, sunlight  even,  taken  in  excess  is  poison.  But  on 
this  head  I  believe  Madame  Roland  made  long  ago  a 
pregnant  and  familiar  observation  at  a,  for  her,  highly 
emotional  moment. 

Recurring  to  the  general  problem:  The  old  Pro- 
crustean system  of  college  education  was  based  on  the 
assumption  that  certain  things  went  to  make  up  what 


118  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

was,  and  for  that  matter  still  is,  conventionally  known 
as  a  man  of  liberal  education.  All  men,  moreover,  were 
assumed  to  be  alike.  What  experience  had  shown  was 
good  for  most,  was  good  for  all  and  for  each.  The  edu- 
cated man,  so-called,  must  know  certain  things,  or  at 
least  have  a  smattering  knowledge  thereof.  They  were 
always  the  same  things.  The  only  conception  of  a  men- 
tal training  was  confined  to  a  thorough  grounding  in 
what  were  known  as  the  "humanities."  This  system 
was  traditional ;  and  it  was  accepted  as  final  in  univer- 
sity circles  until  a  time  almost  within  the  memory  of  men 
now  living.  It  was  first  broken  into  at  Harvard  during 
the  presidency  of  Josiah  Quincy,  and  his  remark  when 
a  chair  of  physics  was  then  suggested  has  become  a 
Harvard  classic.  "Throw  physic  to  the  dogs! "  the  old 
president  exclaimed.  Whether  through  accent  and  in- 
tonation in  this  case  the  word  "dogs"  was  intended  to 
designate  the  student  body,  or  whether  in  a  general  way 
Mr.  Quincy  merely  relieved  himself  of  an  apt  Shakes- 
pearean quotation,  does  not  appear.  Nevertheless,  the 
system  was,  and  by  tradition  had  always  been,  one  of 
strictly  prescribed  studies,  uniform  in  character  and 
application.  Once  released,  and  in  motion,  the  pendu- 
lum swung  far  back.  In  fact,  it  swung  to  the  other 
extreme.  The  cry  was  liberty,  aptitude,  individualism ! 
Originally,  and  distinctly  so  in  my  time,  the  concep- 
tion of  a  university,  or  liberal,  education  was  that  the 
baccalaureate  had  at  least  a  rudimentary  insight  into 
a  great  many  branches  of  useful  knowledge,  —  for 
example,  the  classic  tongues,  history,  physics,  meta- 
physics, philosophy,  mathematics,  —  including  arith- 
metic, algebra  and  geometry,  —  logic,  astronomy, 
political  economy,  the  use  of  the  spheres,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 
These  studies  were  hot  much  regarded  from  the  mental 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    119 

gymnastic,  or  training,  point  of  view;  but,  like  silver 
dollars  in  the  pocket,  they  were  good  things  to  have  in 
the  head  and  memory.  A  little  knowledge  of  chemistry 
or  algebra  might  come  in  handily  some  day;  almost  as 
much  so  as  a  happy  classical  quotation.  More  recently 
this  mid-century  practice  has  given  way  to  the  special- 
ist theory  now  in  vogue. 

I  find  myself  as  much  dissatisfied  with  the  new  as 
I  was  with  the  old.  Neither  squares  at  all  with  my 
experience  or  my  observation.  What  have  I  to  propose 
as  a  substitute  for  that  which  exists,  and  which  I  thus 
unsparingly  condemn?  Something,  I  unquestionably 
have;  like  Touchstone's  Audrey,  perhaps,  "a  poor 
virgin,  sir,  an  ill-favored  thing,  sir,  but  mine  own;  a 
poor  humor  of  mine,  sir,  to  take  that  no  man  else  will." 
But,  before  propounding  a  system,  it  is  necessary  to 
agree  on  first  principles.  To  begin  with,  it  is  essential 
to  define  a  college  education,  —  that  is,  an  education 
which  prepares  for  life's  specialty  or  calling.  It  is,  I  con- 
tend, purely  a  training  of  the  mental  powers,  —  the 
suppling  and  development  of  the  intellectual  muscles 
and  sinews,  —  the  proportioning  of  the  faculties.  So 
far,  I  imagine,  there  will  be  a  general  concurrence;  no 
paradox  has  yet  been  enunciated.  But  both  my  obser- 
vation of  others  and  my  self-experience  next  tell  me  that 
all  the  faculties,  as  seen  in  every  human  mind  I  have 
had  occasion  to  study,  group  themselves  under  three  dis- 
tinct heads:  first,  and  highest,  the  imaginative;  second, 
the  reasoning;  and,  third,  the  observing.  There  is  no 
attribute  of  the  mind,  so  far  as  I  know,  which  will  not 
find  its  proper  place  in  one  or  another  of  these  groups, 
and  be  subject  to  its  laws.  The  imaginative  includes, 
of  course,  the  literary  and  the  artistic;  the  reasoning, 
logic,  mathematics,  and  cause  and  effect;  the  observ- 


UNIVERSITY  ] 

OF 

£*U  FOR  MIL 


120  THREE  3>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

ing,  all  outward  manifestations  of  matter  and  inward 
of  mind,  the  subjective  as  well  as  the  objective.  Every 
man's  aptitudes  lie  in  one  or  other,  or  possibly  all  three 
of  these  directions;  if  in  all  three,  he  is  apt  to  be  afflicted 
with  what  is  commonly  known  as  a  fatal  facility.  If 
exclusively  in  one,  he  has  a  manifest  call,  —  he  is  then 
known  as  a  poet,  astronomer,  naturalist, — Shakespeare, 
of  imagination  all  compact;  Newton,  who,  as  Lord 
Erskine  tells  us,  "  carried  the  line  and  rule  to  the  utter- 
most barriers  of  creation,  and  explained  the  principle 
by  which  all  created  matter  exists  and  is  held  together; " 
Darwin,  who,  through  observation,  rewrote  Genesis. 

The  educated  man  —  what  we  colloquially  call  the 
all-round  educated  man  —  is  next  to  be  defined.  An 
educated  man  is,  I  take  it,  one  in  whom  the  imaginative 
faculties,  the  reasoning  faculties  and  the  observing 
faculties  have  all  been  properly  and  adequately  devel- 
oped, —  developed  to  such  a  degree  that  each  becomes 
a  usable  tool  for  accomplishing  the  work  in  hand  to  do. 
The  imaginative  man  should  be  trained  to  reason  and 
observe,  to  a  degree.  The  reasoning  man,  devoid  of 
imagination  and  unable  to  observe,  becomes,  whether 
in  religion,  in  politics  or  in  philosophy,  notoriously  a 
pitfall.  On  the  other  hand,  the  observing  man  finds 
himself  at  fault  unless  he  can  imagine  and  reason.  No 
man,  moreover,  is  fit  to  be  called  educated  unless  in 
him  each  group  of  faculties  has  been  suppled  and 
trained.  Newton,  for  instance,  observed  an  apple  drop; 
he  fell  back  on  his  imagination;  his  mathematics  did 
the  rest. 

Judged  by  this  test,  who  of  us  can  claim  to  be  an 
educated  man,  —  a  well-developed  mental  athlete  ? 
Let  each  recall  his  own  experience.  Mine  can  be  very 
briefly  told.  When  I  went  to  Harvard,  what  did  I  —  a 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    121 

boy  of  seventeen,  fresh  from  a  school-desk  —  know  of 
my  own  aptitudes  and  limitations?  What  even  glim- 
mering perception  had  I  of  that  mental  training  of 
which  I  stood  in  most  crying  need  ?  Now,  too  late,  I 
realize  that  I  had  not  the  slightest  either  of  knowledge 
or  of  perception.  I  know  that  in  my  case,  as  in  the  case 
of  every  man  I  ever  met,  the  education  I  most  sorely 
needed  was  of  those  faculties  in  which  I  was  most  de- 
ficient. For  example,  I  suppose  to-morrow,  as  often 
before,  I  shall  find  myself  accused,  possibly  convicted, 
of  much  of  what  the  critics  are  pleased  to  call  "loose 
thinking"  in  this  address.  As  a  general  rule  I  have  no- 
ticed the  term  is  a  convenient  one,  used  to  describe  any 
thinking  or  result  of  thought  in  which  the  person  criti- 
cising fails  to  sympathize;  but,  assuming  in  the  present 
case  its  truth,  what  does  it  imply  ?  Simply  that,  as  re- 
spects the  reasoning  faculties,  my  early  education  was 
neglected,  a  natural  deficiency  was  not,  to  some  extent 
at  least,  made  good.  And  this  was  indeed  the  case. 
But  the  deficiency  is,  I  submit,  to  be  laid  at  the  door  of 
the  college  elective  system.  I  had  no  aptitude  for  mathe- 
matics, —  for  close  reasoning  in  any  form.  I  got  rid  of 
them  under  the  Harvard  elective  system  at  the  earliest 
moment  possible.  Like  the  others,  I  followed  the  line  of 
least  resistance, — my  inclination  to  avoid  hard,  irksome 
thought.  We  all  did  it  then;  they  all  do  it  now.  It  is 
the  natural,  as  well  as  logical,  outcome  of  the  college 
elective  system  as  at  present  in  vogue.  I  have  ever  since 
been  laboring  to  make  good  that  lack  of  early  training. 
In  my  case  what  took  its  place  in  college  ?  I  browsed 
about,  sampling  this,  that,  and  the  other.  I  gave  up 
the  classics ;  I  got  rid  of  mathematics ;  and  I  have 
since  learned  that,  educationally,  the  thing  of  all  things 
I  needed  for  my  subsequent  good,  was  a  severe  and 


122  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

continued  training  in  mathematics  and  in  Greek.  I  now 
devoutly  wish  I  had  never  been  allowed  a  choice. 
Whether  I  liked  it  or  not,  I  should  have  been  trained 
to  reason  closely;  I  should  have  been  thoroughly 
grounded  in  literature. 

As  to  the  observing  faculties,  in  my  college  days  their 
existence  was  unrecognized.1  In  the  Life  of  Charles 
Darwin,  written  by  his  son,  there  are  some  curious 
passages,  throwing  a  vivid  gleam  of  light  on  the  edu- 
cationalist and  university  point  of  view  as  it  then  ex- 
isted here  as  well  as  in  Great  Britain.  The  son  writes: 
"It  is  curious  that  my  father  often  spoke  of  his  Cam- 
bridge life  as  if  it  had  been  so  much  time  wasted,  for- 
getting that,  although  the  set  studies  of  the  place  were 
barren  enough  for  him,  he  yet  gained  in  the  highest 
degree  the  best  advantages  of  a  university  life,  —  the 
contact  with  men  and  an  opportunity  for  his  mind  to 
grow  vigorously."  The  reason  the  father  thus  looked 
upon  his  university  life  as  "so  much  time  wasted"  is 
explained  earlier,  when  he  says,  in  his  autobiography, 
speaking  of  his  boyhood,  "Nothing  could  have  been 
worse  for  the  development  of  my  mind  than  Dr.  But- 
ler's school  [at  Shrewsbury],  as  it  was  strictly  classical, 
nothing  else  being  taught,  except  a  little  ancient  geo- 
graphy and  history.  The  school  as  a  means  of  educa- 
tion to  me  was  simply  a  blank.  Looking  back  as  well 
as  I  can  at  my  character  during  my  school  life,  the  only 
qualities  which  at  this  period  promised  well  for  the 
future,  were,  that  I  had  strong  and  diversified  tastes, 
much  zeal  for  whatever  interested  me,  and  a  keen  plea- 
sure in  understanding  any  complex  subject  or  thing." 
Towards  the  close  of  his  school  life,  Darwin  got  hold  of 
some  books  on  chemistry;  and,  being  naturally  of  an 
1  Supra,  p.  25. 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    123 

observing  turn  of  mind,  he  says  they  interested  him 
greatly.  He  adds:  "This  was  the  best  part  of  my 
education  at  school,  for  it  showed  me  practically  the 
meaning  of  experimental  science.  The  fact  that  we 
worked  at  chemistry  somehow  got  known  at  school, 
and  as  it  was  an  unprecedented  fact,  I  was  nicknamed 
'Gas.'  I  was  also  once  publicly  rebuked  by  the  head- 
master, Dr.  Butler,  for  thus  wasting  my  time  on  such 
useless  subjects;  and  he  called  me  very  unjustly  a  poco 
curante."  Transferred  from  Dr.  Butler's  school  to 
Edinburgh  University,  and  then  to  Cambridge,  he  says: 
"  During  the  three  years  which  I  spent  at  Cambridge 
my  time  was  wasted,  as  far  as  the  academical  studies 
were  concerned,  as  completely  as  at  Edinburgh  and 
at  school.  I  attempted  mathematics.  The  work  was 
repugnant  to  me,  chiefly  from  my  not  being  able  to  see 
any  meaning  in  the  early  steps  in  algebra.  This  impa- 
tience was  very  foolish,  and  in  after  years  I  have  deeply 
regretted  that  I  did  not  proceed  far  enough  at  least  to 
understand  something  of  the  great  leading  principles 
of  mathematics,  for  men  thus  endowed  seem  to  have 
an  extra  sense.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  I  should  ever 
have  succeeded  beyond  a  very  low  grade.  With  respect 
to  classics  I  did  nothing  except  attend  a  few  compul- 
sory college  lectures,  and  the  attendance  was  almost 
nominal.  Although,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  there 
were  some  redeeming  features  in  my  life  at  Cambridge, 
my  time  was  sadly  wasted  there,  and  worse  than 
wasted." 

Thus  totally  disqualified  in  the  student  period  for 
the  wise  selection  of  his  own  college  electives  was  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  minds  England  in  all  its  long 
history  has  ever  produced.  Naturally,  Darwin  was 
above  all  an  observer.    For  this  branch  of  training  the 


124  THREE  ®  B   K  ADDRESSES 

university,  as  then  developed,  furnished  no  opportun- 
ities. No  provision  was  made  for  it;  nor  was  the  want 
considered  worth  supplying.  It  did  not  come  within 
the  sphere  of  university  work  as  then  understood. 
But  Darwin's  imaginative  powers  were  naturally 
defective.  So  defective  that,  looking  back  at  the  age  of 
sixty-seven,  he  wrote,  "Later  in  life  I  wholly  lost,  to 
my  great  regret,  all  pleasure  from  poetry  of  any  kind, 
including  Shakespeare."  Incomparable  as  an  observer, 
what  Darwin's  mind  educationally  called  for,  as  he 
himself  later  noted,  was  literary  development  and 
mathematical  training.  But  my  immediate  point  is 
that,  if  Charles  Darwin  was,  in  his  university  days, 
quite  unqualified  to  settle  for  himself  the  instruction 
he  most  needed  to  develop  his  faculties,  what  can  be 
said  in  favor  of  the  free  elective  system  when  applied 
to  the  average  youth  ?  Clearly,  it  is  not  calculated  for 
the  production  of  the  well  and  symmetrically  propor- 
tioned mind,  with  every  faculty  .suppled  and  made 
available.  Its  logical  tendency  would  be  towards  a  slip- 
shod and  slovenly  mode  of  thought  in  the  average  man, 
with  exceptional  instances  either  partially  developed 
or  developed  abnormally. 

Recurring  once  more  to  myself  and  my  own  experi- 
ence, I  have  already  told  of  the  advice  I  received 
during  my  college  course;  let  me  now  add  with  perfect 
confidence  that  the  course  pursued  by  me,  acting  on 
my  own  unaided  volition,  was  as  wrong  and  as  mis- 
chievous, so  far  as  my  future  was  concerned,  as  it  well 
could  have  been.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  in  those  days  advice  on  this  subject  was  not 
within  the  student's  reach,  or  the  college  purview.  In- 
deed, I  can  now  easily  picture  to  myself  the  outcome 
of  a  student's  interview  with  a  typical  professor  of  that 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    125 

period  had  the  latter  been  consulted  as  to  a  course  best 
calculated  to  train  the  observing  faculties.  At  first 
there  would  have  been  a  bewilderment;  the  profes- 
sorial mind  must  have  been  allowed  time  to  work  over 
the  possible  connection  of  the  habit  of  observing  with 
any  recognized  conception  of  college  training.  Then 
the  light  would  have  dawned  in  the  oracle's  eyes, 
suffusing  his  face  with  intelligence,  as  he  remarked: 
"Oh,  yes! — Development  of  observing  faculties;  I  see! 
I  should  by  all  means  recommend  a  thorough  grounding 
in  the  Greek  and  Latin  grammars.  Nothing  like  it  to 
make  boys  construe  correctly;  —  and  what  is  that  but 
correct  observation  ?  " 

But,  on  this  subject,  a  very  popular  writer,  Mr.  A. 
Conan  Doyle,  has  something  to  say  in  the  instructive, 
as  well  as  entertaining  volume  known  as  The  Adven- 
tures of  Sherlock  Holmes.  The  amateur  detective 
there  critically  remarks  to  his  friend:  "'You  see,  but 
you  do  not  observe.  For  example  you  have  frequently 
seen  the  steps  which  lead  up  from  the  hall  to  this  room.' 

"'Frequently.' 

"'How  often?' 

"Well,  some  hundreds  of  times.' 

"'Then  how  many  are  there?' 

"'How  many?    I  don't  know.' 

"'Quite  so!  You  have  not  observed.  And  yet  you 
have  seen.  That  is  just  my  point.  Now,  I  know  that 
there  are  just  seventeen  steps,  because  I  have  both  seen 
and  observed.' "  I  have  already  alluded  to  the  familiar 
case  of  Newton  and  the  apple;  the  great  mathema- 
tician observed,  where  the  college  professor  would  only 
have  seen  a  far  from  unusual  occurrence.  There  is  a 
like  illustration  of  the  difference  in  an  anecdote  I  have 
heard,  probably  false,  of  Jenner  in  connection  with  his 


126  THREE  <l>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

discovery  of  vaccination.  It  is  said  he  was  looking  for 
a  nurse  to  care  for  a  patient  suffering  from  a  well-de- 
veloped case  of  small-pox.  A  milkmaid  offered  her  ser- 
vices. The  physician  put  the  usual  question,  "Have 
you  had  the  small-pox  P"  "  No,"  answered  the  woman, 
"but  I've  had  the  cow-pox."  The  practical  fact  that 
having  had  the  cow-pox  rendered  one  immune  to  the 
small-pox  was  well  known  to  every  milkmaid,  but  not 
until  an  exceptionally  intelligent  physician  was,  so  to 
speak,  clubbed  over  the  head  with  this  reply  did  it  dawn 
on  any  one  that  by  giving  a  person  the  cow-pox  you 
might  preserve  him  or  her  from  the  small-pox. 

It  is  simply  amazing  to  note  the  extent  to  which, 
liberally  educated  through  generations,  having  eyes  we 
see,  and  yet  fail  to  observe.  Problems  of  greatest  mo- 
ment when  once  solved  obvious  of  solution,  thus  remain 
unsolved  even  by  those  most  thoroughly  grounded  in 
the  humanities.  Could  a  more  striking  instance  be  im- 
agined than  that  of  the  mosquito?  Immemorially  we 
have  gone  on  staggering  under  the  burden  of  malaria 
and  the  terror  of  yellow  fever;  and,  all  the  time,  we 
have  persisted  in  regarding  the  mosquito  as  an  annoy- 
ing and  irritating  but  quite  harmless  insect  of  the  order 
Diptera,  against  the  bite  of  which  hardly  any  precau- 
tion was  taken.  Recently  the  trained  observer  has 
turned  his  attention  upon  the  buzzing  torment  the 
inobservant  naturalist  had  carefully  classified,  and  we 
slowly  awoke  to  the  fact  that  the  serpent  kingdom, 
combined  with  that  of  all  varieties  of  beasts  of  prey,  are, 
so  far  as  the  human  race  is  concerned,  comparatively 
speaking  innocuous.  The  mosquito  is  more  to  be  feared 
by  man  than  the  entire  reptile  creation. 

Thus  the  work  of  the  trained  observer  is  of  infinite 
importance  in  every  branch  of  research.  That  the  habit 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    127 

of  careful  observation  can  be  educated  is  obvious;  that 
it  should  be  imparted  early  few  will  be  disposed  to  deny; 
that  even  now  it  is  recognized,  except  incidentally,  in 
any  college  curriculum  nobody  pretends.  Yet  it  is  at 
the  very  foundation  of  every  course  in  natural  science; 
and,  for  that  matter,  of  every  course  in  social  and 
applied  science  also.  At  Harvard  they  for  two  centuries 
lived  and  moved  contentedly  with  implicit  faith  in  the 
truth  and  finality  of  the  Mosaic  cosmogony;  at  last 
men  came  along  who,  in  spite  of  their  college  training, 
observed  as  well  as  saw,  and  like  the  baseless  fabric  of 
a  vision,  the  faith  of  centuries  melted  away.  Confronted 
by  really  observing  eyes,  it  proved  an  insubstantial 
pageant.  It  was  merely  Sherlock  Holmes's  query  in 
another  form.  Generation  after  generation  those  learned 
professors  had  walked  the  familiar  streets  of  Cam- 
bridge and  contemplated  the  everlasting  hills  of  Arling- 
ton,—  all  God's  handiwork;  and,  until  Agassiz  en- 
lightened them,  the  significance  of  yonder  boulder  in 
the  field,  or  those  scratches  on  the  stones  by  the  way- 
side, or  those  layers  of  clay  and  gravel  in  the  cutting, 
quite  escaped  their  purblind  gaze.  Harvard  taught 
the  humanities  and  theology;  the  intelligent  use  of  the 
eyes  was  beneath  its  dignity,  and  none  of  its  affair. 

But  the  whole  issue  centres  just  there.  What  is  its 
affair  ?  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain  through 
twenty-five  years  of  the  discussions  of  the  Harvard 
Board  of  which  I  have  been  a  member,  the  authorities 
are  as  wide  apart  on  that  subject  now  as  ever  they  were. 
There  is  no  agreement;  no  united  effort  to  a  given  end. 
Some  still  contend  —  I  have  heard  them  in  debate  — 
that  the  true  end  and  aim  of  the  college  should  be  to 
send  young  men  out  into  the  world  with  their  heads 
packed  like  valises  with  a  choice  assortment  of  odds- 


128  THREE  <l>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

and-ends,  —  some  of  the  humanities,  a  smattering  of 
Greek  and  Latin  of  course,  a  fair  supply  of  mathe- 
matics, samples  of  natural  science,  a  specimen  or  two 
of  the  world's  stock  of  history  and  so-called  philo- 
sophies, with  a  superficial  familiarity  with  the  master- 
pieces of  literature.  The  young  man  whose  brain  and 
memory  are  thus  loaded  is,  according  to  their  view, 
well  equipped.  By  him  the  college  has  done  its  whole 
duty.  Next  comes  the  propounder  of  the  athletic  dis- 
pensation. Do  the  authorities  give  proper  attention  to 
the  intercollegiate  contests  ?  Class  standing  is  all  very 
well;  but  who  is  captain  of  the  crew,  or  the  football 
team,  or  the  baseball  nine  ?  The  great  fear  is  lest  the 
university  "gets  left"  on  the  river,  the  gridiron  or  the 
diamond.  When  the  prophet  of  the  gymnasium  sub- 
sides, the  utilitarian  takes  the  floor.  His  idea  is  that 
Harvard  devotes  altogether  too  much  of  the  student's 
time  to  studies  of  no  practical  use  in  the  life  that  now 
is.  The  up-to-date  college  training  should,  he  insists, 
have  more  of  business,  or  common-sense,  character,  — 
the  humanities  should  be  relegated  to  the  background, 
and  good,  plain,  bread-winning  ends  held  steadily  in 
view,  —  all  else  is  what  this  philosophy  of  life  some- 
what contemptuously  designates  as  "mere  culture."  * 
A  grade  higher  up  is  the  advocate  of  specialism.  Im- 
pressed with  the  immensity  and  diversity  of  knowledge, 
he  sets  it  down  as  the  function  of  the  ideal  college  to 
prepare  men  to  do  that  work  for  which  they  feel  an 
aptitude,  and  to  do  nothing  else.  To  that  work  they 
should  be  trained  from  the  kindergarten;  and,  so  far 
as  direction  is  concerned,  the  college  should  stand  aside, 
and  content  itself  by  aiding  them  in  every  way  as  they 
thus  work  out  their  inwardly  inspired  destinies. 
1  Supra,  p.  14. 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    129 

From  all  of  these  views  of  the  proper  college  end  and 
aim  I  dissent.  My  own  belief  is  that  the  college  is  sim- 
ply an  intellectual  training-school,  —  a  mental  gym- 
nasium; no  more  and  no  less.  As  it  is  the  function  of 
the  physical  gymnasium  to  turn  out  the  athlete  with  no 
muscle  developed  at  the  expense  of  any  other  —  every- 
thing, back,  shoulders,  arms,  legs,  lungs  and  heart  in 
perfect  proportion;  so  should  it  be  the  function  of  the 
college  to  turn  out  the  student  thoroughly  trained  in 
the  use  of  his  several  faculties,  and  suppled  in  all  brain 
action.  The  end  in  view  is  not  acquired  knowledge, 
but  the  control  of  every  faculty  for  the  quick  acquisition 
of  knowledge. 

With  this  definition  in  mind,  let  me  close  by  pictur- 
ing the  ideal  college  of  the  future  as,  nearing  the  end, 
I  see  it.  It  is  something  very  different  from  what  I  know 
by  experience  was;  or  from  what  my  observation  tells 
me  is.  It  is  what,  as  I  see  it  now,  I  required,  but  did 
not  get;  it  is  what  my  observation  leads  me  confidently 
to  believe  those  of  the  coming  generation  with  whom 
I  chance  to  be  in  contact  ought  to  have. 

Fifty-four  years  ago,  when  the  class  of  1856  entered 
Harvard,  the  college,  —  and,  be  it  remembered  always 
it  is  the  college,  the  undergraduate  department  alone, 
we  are  considering,  —  the  college,  as  I  have  already 
said,  in  1852,  reported  three  hundred  and  twenty  stu- 
dents, —  four  classes,,  averaging  exactly  eighty  mem- 
bers each.  It  was  what  would  now  be  considered  a  small 
college,  —  for,  one  and  all,  Williams,  Tufts,  Amherst, 
Bowdoin,  and  Dartmouth  average  one  hundred  and 
fifty  members  to  every  class.  Each  of  them  is  larger 
than  Harvard  then  was.  Harvard,  accordingly,  in  1856 
was  of  just  the  proper  size  to  allow  in  theory  of  close 
personal  touch  between  instructor  and  student.   Every 


130  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

one,  professor  or  student,  —  teacher  or  taught,  —  con- 
nected with  the  institution  was  supposedly  individual. 
What  in  my  own  case  that  touch  amounted  to  I  have 
sufficiently  set  forth.  A  more  complete  separation  of 
the  mature  from  the  immature  could  hardly  have  ex- 
isted. But  assuming  that  eighty  is  the  proper  limit 
of  a  college,  —  the  number  of  students  a  competent 
master  can  familiarize  himself  with  personally  and 
individually  influence,  mind  acting  on  mind, —  in  that 
case  Harvard  then  would  have  numbered  four  separate 
colleges,  —  we  will  say  Holworthy,  Stoughton,  Hollis 
and  Holden,  each  with  its  own  directing  head  and  mind, 
—  president,  dean,  chancellor,  master,  however  he 
might  have  been  designated.  Now,  there  would  be  some 
twenty  or  more  such  colleges.  Presumably  each  college 
would  have  its  specialty,  —  that  line  of  instruction  and 
electives  to  which  its  master  most  inclined,  —  classics, 
mathematics,  history,  physics,  philosophy,  and  so  on. 
Selecting  his  college  as  he  inclined  in  his  studies  or  for 
traditional  reasons,  the  incoming  student  would  on 
its  books  inscribe  his  name.  Passing  his  admittance 
examination  at  the  preparatory  school  at  Andover,  or 
Exeter,  or  Concord,  or  Groton,  selecting  perhaps  the 
college  more  especially  devoted  to  the  classics,  at  the 
proper  time  he  would  present  himself  to,  we  will  say, 
the  master  of  Holworthy.  Like  a  young  horse  going 
from  the  training-field  to  the  racing-stables,  a  record  of 
pedigree  and  performances  would  have  preceded  him, 
and  be  in  the  hands  of  the  master.  Then,  face  to 
face,  the  two  would  proceed  to  "  size  "  each  other.  The 
result  would  be  a  programme  of  study  reaching  forward 
through  the  entire  college  course,  —  studies  prescribed 
and  elective,  only  to  be  changed  with  the  consent  and 
upon  the  advice  of  the  master.  Had  such  a  system  been 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    131 

in  use  during  the  mid-decenniums  of  the  last  century, 
I  now  know  well  enough  what  my  college  course  ought 
to  have  been,  —  what  it  might  have  been  had  I  been 
blessed  with  guidance,  wise  or  kindly;  something,  I  ever- 
lastingly regret  to  say,  wholly  different  from  what  it 
was.  Grouping  the  faculties,  and  giving  due  emphasis 
to  aptitudes  and  inclination,  to  the  account  of  the  imag- 
inative qualities  would  have  been  assigned  Greek,  Ger- 
man, and  English,  all  to  be  followed  up  systematically, 
consecutively  and  persistently  from  the  day  of  entrance 
to  that  of  graduation.1  To  this  I  would  readily  have 
assented.  Not  so  when  it  next  came  to  providing  for 
the  suppling  and  developing  of  my  reasoning  faculties. 
For  that,  a  continuous  course  in  mathematics  was  neces- 
sary; and,  even  now,  I  can  hear  myself  vigorously  pro- 
testing, earnestly  pleading  against  it.  I  hated  mathe- 
matics. I  had  no  aptitude  for  figures  or  demonstrations; 
I  never  could  attain  any  considerable  degree  of  alge- 
braic or  geometric  proficiency.  Then  would  have  come 
in  the  counsel  of  the  maturer  mind.  '■'  Young  man," 
the  master  would  have  said,  "you  have  now  given  a 
conclusive  reason  for  the  selection  of  that  study  as  an 
elective  in  your  particular  case.  Your  mind  calls  for 
just  that  discipline.  Loose,  easy  thinking  is  your 
besetting  weakness.  Mentally,  you  are  active-minded ; 
also  slovenly.  Above  all  else  you  must  accustom  your- 
self to  following  out  a  train  of  thought,  at  once  exact 
and  sustained,  to  a  given  result."  And,  so  saying, 
he  would  have  simply  uttered  truth.  I  know  it  now. 
Accordingly,  mathematics,  diversified  possibly  by  logic, 
would  in  my  case  have  been  prescribed  for  the  entire 
college  course,  —  from  its  A  to  its  Z.  Next,  provision 
would  have  been  made  for  the  observing  faculty;  and, 
1  Supra,  pp.  11,  21,  41,  45. 


132  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

again,  having  eyes  I  saw,  and  ever  since  have  seen,  at 
best  but  imperfectly.  I  stood  in  great  need  of  a  severe 
training  in  observation,  —  courses  in  chemistry,  geo- 
logy, botany  and  forestry  should  have  been  provided. 
I  should  have  been  compelled  to  take  note.  And  thus 
my  college  course  would  have  been  mapped  out  for  me 
on  scientific  considerations  from  my  own  commence- 
ment to  my  college  commencement.  Would  that  it 
might  so  have  been! 

But  possibly,  or  more  probably  as  matter  of  cer- 
tainty, it  will  be  said  that,  for  an  educated  man,  such 
a  course  as  that  outlined  would  be  strangely  defective. 
Where,  for  instance,  is  history  and  political  economy? 
Where  physics,  metaphysics,  and  moral  philosophy? 
The  idea  of  calling  a  man  educated  who  knows  nothing 
of  these  branches  of  knowledge !  Even  so !  But,  trained 
to  reason  and  observe,  with  each  faculty  developed  as 
a  tool  to  the  hand  of  the  artisan,  no  longer  an  appren- 
tice, for  what  branch  of  research  would  I  not  have  been 
equipped  ?  To  him  who  can  imagine,  reason,  observe 
and  express  himself,  all  knowledge  becomes  an  open 
book. 

For  him  who  graduated  half  a  century  ago,  the  game 
is  now  either  won  to  a  degree  or  irretrievably  lost.  But, 
reviewing  his  record,  he  is  apt  to  see  with  great  distinct- 
ness the  nature  of  the  game,  and  wherein  his  play  was 
defective,  wherein  correct.  For  myself,  thus  retrospect- 
ing,  I  am  constrained  to  say  that,  as  a  training-place 
for  the  game  in  which  I  was  to  take  a  hand,  the  colleges 
of  the  period,  —  and  Harvard  stood  first  among  them, 
—  viewed  as  mental  gymnasiums,  were  ill-adapted  to 
existing  conditions,  unsympathetic  and,  as  respects  or- 
ganization, already  distinctly  outgrown.  In  the  matter 
of  intellectual  training,  it  was  a  period  of  transition,  — 


SOME  MODERN  COLLEGE  TENDENCIES    133 

the  system  of  prescribed  studies  was  yielding  to  a  theory 
of  electives.  So  far  as  it  had  then  been  developed  and 
applied,  the  new  system  proved  in  my  experience  a  de- 
lusion, a  pitfall  and  a  snare.  My  observation,  as  I  said 
in  the  beginning,  leads  me  to  apprehend  that  conditions 
in  these  respects,  when  taken  as  a  whole,  have  not  since 
changed  for  the  better.  The  old  organization  yet  lum- 
bers along;  the  implicit  belief  in  the  pursuit  of  aptitudes 
on  lines  of  least  resistance  is  in  fullest  vogue.  Could  I, 
on  the  contrary,  have  my  way,  I  would  now  break  our 
traditional  academic  system  into  fragments,  as  some- 
thing which  had  long  since  done  its  work,  and  is  now 
quite  outgrown;  and  I  would  somehow  get  back  to  the 
close  contact  of  mind  upon  mind.  I  would  to  a  large 
extent  do  away  with  this  arms-length  lecture-room 
education  for  the  college  period.  I  would  develop  an 
elective  system  based  on  scientific  principles,  and  the 
study  of  the  individual;  properly  regulated,  it  should 
be  intelligently  applied.  I  would  prescribe  one  of  the 
classic  tongues,  Greek  or  Latin,  as  a  compulsory  study 
to  the  day  of  graduation,  the  one  royal  road  to  a  know- 
ledge of  all  that  is  finest  in  letters  and  in  art. l  I  would 
force  every  student  to  reason  closely  all  through  his 
college  days;  while  no  man  not  trained  to  observe,  and 
equal  to  tests  in  observation,  should  receive  a  degree. 
Beyond  this  I  would  let  the  student  elect.  He  might 
follow  his  aptitudes. 

Having  thus  spoken,  I  submit  what  is  said  as  a  spe- 
cies of  apologia  pro  vita  mea.  My  generation  was  never 
properly  trained;  like  our  contemporaneous  Topsy, 
"we  just  growed." 

1  Supra,  pp.  11, 14, 15,  22,  41,  43. 


SUPPLEMENTARY  NOTE 

Dealing  as  it  did  with  educational  topics  exciting  no  incon- 
siderable interest  in  academic  circles,  the  foregoing  address, 
not  unnaturally,  failed  at  the  time  of  delivery  to  pass  unchal- 
lenged. Neither  was  it  perhaps  just  matter  of  surprise  that 
a  portion  at  least  of  the  criticisms  made  upon  it  were  marked 
by  a  certain  asperity  of  tone  indicative  of  temper.  The  sub- 
ject of  American  collegiate  education  is,  however,  one  which 
at  just  this  juncture  will  not  only  bear  discussion,  but  plainly 
is  one  which  has  got  to  be  discussed;  and  not  until  it  has  been 
so  discussed,  and  that  from  every  point  of  view,  can  any  sat- 
isfactory or  generally  accepted  result  concerning  it  be  looked 
for.  The  American  college  is  at  present  obviously  passing 
through  an  experimental  stage.  The  situation  is  with  it,  to 
say  the  least,  mixed:  — large  colleges  or  small  colleges;  the 
elective  system,  or  the  prescribed  system,  or  the  intermediate 
system ;  the  short  course,  or  the  long  course;  the  examination 
system,  or  the  certificate  system;  the  advisory  or  preceptorial 
experiments;  the  go-as-you-please,  the  aptitude,  and  the 
line-of-least-resistance  theories  of  development,  —  all  are 
on  trial,  and  each  has  its  critic  and  advocate.  As  many 
institutions,  so  many  experiments.  Each  institution,  also,  be 
it  Harvard  or  Yale  or  Princeton,  seems  quite  satisfied  that  it, 
and  it  only,  is  on  the  right  track;  and  that  the  desired  end, 
if  not  actually  reached,  or  in  plain  view,  is  safely  located  at 
the  end  of  the  path  that  particular  institution  is  blazing. 

But  to  the  outside  observer,  one  thing  only  seems  unde- 
niable: The  present  is,  in  America,  a  period  of  academic 
transition,  and  great  changes  are  immediately  impending. 
These  changes  also  are  called  for,  and  will  be  exacted,  to  meet 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  135 

existing  American  ideals  —  false  or  sound  —  American  con- 
ditions —  good  or  bad  —  and  American  requirements  —  real 
or  imaginary.  They  must,  also,  be  coextensive  with  the  modi- 
fications and  developments  that  American  ideals,  conditions 
and  requirements  have  recently  undergone  or  are  now  under- 
going. The  noticeably  restless  and  experimental  disposition 
just  referred  to,  evinced  by  the  institutions  of  advanced  ed- 
ucation, large  and  small,  is  due  to  an  instinctive  recognition 
on  their  part  of  this  fact.  The  American  college-bred  youth, 
it  is  asserted,  gets  to  the  work  of  life  too  late,  —  at  twenty- 
six  instead  of  twenty- three;  he  gets  to  it,  also,  wrongly  or 
insufficiently  prepared.  The  genus  parent  is  not  satisfied  with 
the  situation,  even  if  the  educator  at  heart  is. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  layman  brought  in  close 
contact  with  the  college  has  a  right  to  his  day  in  court;  the 
conclusions  drawn  from  his  actual  experience,  though  neither 
novel  nor  profound,  are  entitled  to  consideration.  Brief  refer- 
ence may,  therefore,  here  be  worth  while  to  the  criticisms 
which  the  address  called  forth,  and  the  objections  made  in 
university  publications  to  the  views  and  conclusions  ad- 
vanced in  it. 

Passing  over  those  accusations  of  "ignorance,"  or  "funda- 
mental ignorance,"  of  existing  college  conditions,  and  "mis- 
representation," whether  wilful  or  from  inexcusable  remiss- 
ness, freely  advanced  by  those  who,  there  is  some  reason 
to  apprehend,  are  themselves  living  in  what  bears  close  re- 
semblance to  a  fool's  paradise,  it  will  save  both  time  and  space 
to  come  at  once  to  the  real  issue  presented.  That  issue  may 
.be  tersely  put.  The  existing  American  academic  system,  and 
its  logical  tendencies  as  of  late  developing  under  the  exigen- 
cies of  growth,  are,  it  is  charged,  fundamentally  and  struc- 
turally wrong.  The  material  organization,  it  is  claimed,  is 
radically  out  of  date  and  defective;  the  soundness  of  the 
educational  methods  in  use  are  very  open  to  criticism. 


136  THREE  3>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

(1)  That  the  old  American  academic  college  system,  in 
use  down  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  (1865),  is  antiquated 
and  outgrown,  no  one  denies.  The  recent  effort  has  been  to 
adapt  it  to  existing  conditions.  But,  instead  of  reorganization 
on  the  old  traditional  lines,  the  attempt  has  been  and  now 
is  to  substitute  for  it  the  university  system  and  methods 
rather  than  those  of  what  cannot  be  better  described  than  as 
the  gymnasium.  The  result  has  naturally  been  an  unscientific 
anomaly,  —  something  neither  American  nor  English  nor 
yet  German,  from  which  the  institutions  are  now  struggling 
to  extricate  themselves. 

(2)  The  fundamental  thesis  of  the  new  school  seems  to  be 
that,  if  only  trusted  so  to  do,  the  boy  of  17-18,  fresh  from 
the  school  form,  is,  if  incidentally  advised  by  one  a  few  years 
older  than  himself,  the  most  competent  judge  of  his  own  in- 
tellectual structure  and  educational  needs.  This  proposition 
it  is  unnecessary  to  discuss.  Let  every  man  over  forty  years 
of  age  sum  up  his  own  experience  in  life;  having  done  so,  let 
him  answer  the  question  for  his  offspring. 

(3)  But  it  is  replied  that  the  present  system  in  the  larger 
institutions  holds  out  a  multiplicity  of  courses  from  which 
the  student  may  select,  and  of  these  courses  some  are  chosen 
by  so  few  students  that  in  them  the  individual  student  and 
instructor  are  brought  into  the  closest  preceptorial  contact. 
But  this,  it  is  answered,  obviously  leads  to  a  premature  special- 
ization. Instead  of  an  equalized,  symmetrical  training  of  the 
intellectual  powers,  the  college  student  falls  immediately 
under  the  influence  of  an  older  man  devoted  to  a  course  of 
instruction,  or  to  one  branch  of  learning.  He  is  from  the  very 
start,  and  as  matter  of  system,  influenced  to  an  abnormal, 
and  consequently  an  unscientific  development.  The  work 
and  methods  appropriate  to  the  university  period  are  thus 
introduced  into  the  academic  period.  It  is  the  state  of  things 
naturally  resulting  from  that  confusion  of  the  gymnasium 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  137 

and  university  systems  which  the  institutions  are  now  trying 
to  meet  through  the  medium  of  advisers,  preceptors,  etc.,  etc. 
The  somewhat  obvious  fact  has  become  disagreeably  ap- 
parent that  nineteen  boys  at  least  in  every  twenty,  suddenly 
released  at  eighteen  years  of  age  from  a  rigorously  prescribed 
course  of  studies  to  one  of  the  greatest  possible  freedom,  will 
naturally  drop  into  the  lines  of  least  resistance  and  personal 
convenience.  The  attempt  to  counteract  this  natural  tendency 
through  a  machinery  of  so-called  freshmen-advisers  has,  in 
student  circles  at  least,  hitherto  been  considered  so  much  the 
reverse  of  successful  as  to  be  rather  the  object  of  derision. 
At  best,  it  has  been  an  attempt  to  cause  the  blind  to  entrust 
themselves  to  the  guidance  of  those  only  partially,  if  indeed 
as  yet  at  all,  endowed  with  sight.  In  other  words  the  advisers 
were  as  a  rule  only  in  degree  less  immature  than  those  they 
were  supposed  to  direct. 

(4)  It  is  very  currently  believed  that  the  system  of  electives 
as  now  in  use  calls  for  radical  revision.  That  in  the  present 
broadened  field  of  knowledge  the  elective  system,  in  a  modi- 
fied form  and  subject  to  close  supervision,  is  in  college  work 
desirable,  or  even  necessary,  few  are  disposed  to  deny.  But 
the  feeling  among  parents,  and  the  laity  in  general,  is  that 
in  the  strong  reaction  from  the  old  prescribed  course  of  study 
which  has  been  so  marked  since  1840,  the  experiment  has 
been  carried  to  an  extreme;  and,  in  its  present  form,  the  sys- 
tem of  academic  as  distinguished  from  university  electives 
has  a  distinctly  demoralizing,  not  to  say  debauching,  tend- 
ency. Taking  in  hand  the  boy  of  fourteen,  —  for  to  that  age 
it  in  practice  extends,  —  it  talks  to  him  of  his  "aptitudes,"  — 
it  encourages  him  to  attempt  nothing  to  which  he  does  not 
naturally  incline,  or  which  he  finds  what  he  is  pleased  to  term 
"hard."  In  subsequent  life  the  boy,  as  a  man,  has  habitually 
to  face  work  and  duties  both  uncongenial  and  difficult.  He 
can  then  rarely  " elect."   The  wisdom  of  a  system  which  in 


138    '  THREE  <l>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

this  respect  distinctly  tends  to  demoralize  him  at  the  thresh- 
old of  active  life  is  at  least  open  to  question. 

That  these  considerations  have  an  ever-increasing  weight 
in  the  minds  of  the  laity  is  seen  in  the  statistics  of  college 
growth.  These,  especially  of  late,  are  suggestive,  if  not  even 
ominous.  The  larger  institutions  had  best  study  the  hand- 
writing on  the  wall,  and  be  instructed  in  time.  That  the 
adviser  and  preceptorial  experiment,  —  or  rather, perhaps,  the 
crude  freshmen-adviser  experiment  developed  into  a  more 
mature  preceptorial  system,1  is  next  to  be  tried  as  a  panacea 

1  The  Princeton  preceptorial  system  has  already  been  referred  to. 
(Supra,  p.  Ill  n.)  In  his  Annual  Report  for  the  year  1906  (pp.  10-11) 
President  Woodrow  Wilson  thus  describes  the  progress  made  in  the 
development  of  this  system.  The  statement  is  distinctly  encouraging. 
It  indicates  that  a  step,  and  a  long  one,  is  even  now  being  taken 
towards  the  final  result  which  it  was  attempted  to  foreshadow  and 
outline  in  the  address  to  which  this  is  a  note: 

"Our  new  method  of  instruction  has  now  had  a  full  year's  test, 
and  has  stood  the  test  most  satisfactorily.  It  has  produced  more 
and  better  work;  it  has  systematized  and  vitalized  study;  it  has 
begun  to  make  reading  men;  and  it  has  brought  teachers  and 
pupils  into  intimate  relations  of  mutual  interest  and  confidence. 
I  speak  of  it  as  a  'system'  of  instruction,  but  we  have  not  given  it 
the  symmetry  or  the  uniform  rules  of  a  system.  We  have  sought 
to  preserve  the  utmost  elasticity  in  its  use,  in  order  that  the  indi- 
vidual gifts  and  personal  characteristics  of  the  preceptors  might 
have  free  play.  Not  only  must  instruction  in  each  subject  have  its 
own  methods  and  points  of  view,  but  each  instructor  must  be  as 
free  as  possible  to  adapt  himself  to  his  pupils  as  well  as  to  his  sub- 
ject. What  is  true  of  all  teaching  is  particularly  true  of  this  intimate 
way  of  associating  teacher  and  pupil;  the  method  is  no  more  effect- 
ive than  the  man  who  uses  it.  His  whole  makeup  conditions  his 
success  and  determines  its  character.  The  almost  uniform  success 
of  last  year's  work  means  that  the  teachers  were  singularly  fitted  for 
the  new  and  delicate  task  for  which  they  had  been  selected. 

"There  were  marked  varieties  of  success,  of  course.  The  new 
way  of  teaching  demands  for  its  ideal  success  a  very  intimate  and 
cordial  sympathy  between  the  preceptor  and  his  pupils,  and  of 
course  not  all  of  the  preceptors  have  been  of  the  temperament  to 
make  close  friends  of  the  men  they  taught.    Some  are  a  little  too 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  139 

for  an  evil  felt  rather  than  understood  is  now  obvious.  It 
is  in  the  air.  But  that  it  will  meet  the  need  is  still  open  to 
grave  doubt.1  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  requisite 
remedial  move  is  not  to  be  more  reactionary,  —  far  more 
radical.  Not  impossibly  it  will  then  go  yet  further  in  the 
direction  of  the  disciplinary  gymnasium,  —  in  a  word,  back 
to  the  earlier  American  forms.  The  mass  and  university 
college  treatment  will  be  abandoned  in  favor  of  the  sub- 
limated academy,  —  the  family  or  cluster  of  independent 
schools  together  constituting  the  college,  and  the  college  the 
gymnasium  preparatory  to  the  university. 

This  suggestion,  advanced  in  the  foregoing  address,  is  now 
looked  upon  as  "revolutionary,"  as  English,  or  at  least  as 
un-American.  On  the  contrary,  is  it  not  simply  a  reversion 
to  the  original  American  idea  of  a  college  ?  Not  impossibly 
the  mistake,  so  far  as  Harvard,  for  instance,  is  concerned, 
was  made  half  a  century  ago,  when  the  growth  of  the  old 
college,  exceeding  the  capacity  of  the  original  lines,  made 
reorganization  necessary.  New  colleges  on  the  plan  of  the 
original  organization  should  perhaps  then  have  been  formed, 
each  with  its  own  head,  and  not  so  large  as  to  make  it  im- 
possible for  that  head,  not  as  a  specialist  but  as  a  friend  and 
preceptor,  personally  to  influence  the  individual  student.  In 
other  words,  the  college  would  have  undergone  a  process  of 
much  inclined  to  be  mere  faithful  taskmasters,  the  supervisors  of 
their  men's  work,  and  the  intimacy  between  them  and  their  pupils 
is  hardly  more  than  the  intimacy  that  must  in  any  case  come  from 
such  relations  of  mutual  responsibility.  Some  have  succeeded  be- 
cause they  stimulated  their  men;  some  because  they  understood 
and  helped  them;  some  because  they  knew  how  to  hold  them  to 
strict  and  frequent  reckonings;  some  because  they  interested;  others 
because  they  had  the  gift  for  congenial  conference.  But  amidst  all 
the  variety  there  has  been  no  failure,  and  the  beginning  of  the  second 
year  of  the  system  already  shows  interesting  results  in  the  new 
attitude  of  the  undergraduates  and  the  manifest  fruits  of  the  year  of 
training." 

1  Infra,  pp.  169-70. 


140  THREE  <I>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

duplication,  reproduction  and  differentiation  within  itself, 
instead  of  one  of  German  university  experimentation.  Is  it 
not,  in  fact,  this  university  experimentation  which  has  con- 
stituted the  college  revolution,  the  readjustment  consequent 
upon  which  is  still  in  process  ? 

Can  a  satisfactory  readjustment  be  brought  about  on  the 
lines  now  proposed  ?  The  academic  mind  is  confident  it  can. 
The  lay  mind,  in  closer  contact  with  the  outer  world,  and 
more  responsive  to  its  demands,  distinctly  refuses  to  share 
that  confidence.  To  the  collegiate  layman  what  is  now  being 
done  has  the  aspect  of  an  attempt  to  reconcile  and  coordinate 
conditions  essentially  alien,  and  which  his  life  experience 
tells  him  do  not  admit  of  coordination.  Boys  of  eighteen, 
in  his  view,  are  not  matured  men;  and  stern  discipline  has, 
he  has  learned,  a  distinct  educational  value.  Moreover,  a 
confessedly  outgrown  organization  is  at  best  ill  adapted  to 
meet  satisfactorily  the  needs  of  new  and  wholly  different 
conditions.  Altogether,  a  large  problem;  to  be  successfully 
dealt  with,  it  must  be  approached  in  a  comprehensive  way. 

In  the  immediate  future  it  is  obvious  nothing  will  be  done. 
The  times  are  not  auspicious;  for  it  is  plain  to  every  one  who 
observes  at  all  that  existing  conditions  are  by  no  means  and 
in  no  respect  scholarly.  The  atmosphere  of  to-day  is  per- 
meated with  athleticism  and  materialism ;  the  muscular  and 
utilitarian  is  always  and  much  in  evidence.  The  spirit  of 
high  scholarship  is  suffering  a  consequent  eclipse.  In  Europe, 
as  here,  it  is  matter  of  common,  if  somewhat  bewildered, 
observation  that  "  there  is  strangely  little  interest  at  present 
in  any  abstract  or  intellectual  subject  whatever.  .  .  .  In- 
difference and  apathy  seem  to  mark  our  generation.  We 
are  tired  of  old  themes,  and  discover  no  fresh  ones  strongly 
to  interest  us." *  The  ideals  may  be  strenuous  in  character; 
they  assuredly  are  neither  intellectual  nor  scholarly. 

1  "D'une  part,  Tancien  enthousiasme  pour  les  lettres  classiques, 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  141 

To  satisfy  one's  self  of  this  it  is  only  necessary  to  glance 
at  the  columns  of  the  daily  press.  Whole  sheets  of  it  are 
periodically  devoted  to  the  season's  games, —  boating,  base- 
ball, basket-ball,  sprinting,  football.  The  faces  and  figures 
of  the  captains  and  members  of  the  "crew"  or  "team"  are 
familiar  to  every  one.  They  are  the  notorieties.  Where  are 
the  high  scholars ?  Is  there  any  "first  scholar"  now?  Pos- 
sibly his  name  may  be  mentioned  at  Commencement;  but, 
if  printed  in  the  morrow's  journal,  it  will  be  obscurely  and 
in  small  type.  But  the  University  Eight's  race!  —  "  Thirty 
thousand  eager  spectators  lined  the  shore!"  — columns  are 
devoted  to  it.  Here  then  are  the  college  ideals.  Here  !  nor 
will  they  down.  They  directly  and  potently  affect  the  whole 
theory  and  spirit  of  the  higher  education. 

A  new  dispensation  is  now  consequently  preached.  The 
voices  of  its  advocates  are  heard  even  in  university  circles. 
The  American  youth,  it  is  argued,  does  not  like  discipline 
nor  take  kindly  to  severe  work.  Having  now  for  a  genera- 
tion or  two  tasted  the  delight  of  what  has  by  high  authority 
been  well  and  recently  termed  this  "tremendous  access  of 
[collegiate]  freedom," — so  "tremendous"  indeed  as  at 
times  and  in  instances  to  have  bordered  on  license,  —  hav- 
ing tasted  of  this  delight  the  American  youth  will  no  longer 

la  foi  qu'elles  inspiraient  sont  irremediablement  ebranles.  Certes,  il 
ne  saurait  etre  question  d'oublier  le  glorieux  passe  de  l'humanisme, 
les  services  qu'il  a  rendus  et  continue  meme  a  rendre;  cependant, 
il  est  difficile  de  se  soustraire  a  l'impression  qu'il  se  survit  en  partie  a 
lui-meme.  Mais,  d'un  autre  cote,  aucune  foi  nouvelle  n'est  encore 
venue  remplacer  celle  qui  disparait.  II  en  resulte  que  le  maitre  se 
demande  souvent  avec  inquietude  a  quoi  il  sert  et  ou  tendent  ses 
efforts;  il  ne  voit  pas  clairement  comment  ses  fonctions  se  relient 
aux  autres  fonctions  vitales  de  la  societe.  De  la  une  certaine  ten- 
dance au  scepticisme,  une  sorte  de  desenchantement,  un  veritable 
malaise  moral,  en  un  mot,  qui  ne  peut  pas  se  developper  sans  danger. 
Un  corps  enseignant  sans  foi  pedagogique,  c'est  un  corps  sans  ame." 
Emile  Dubkhem,  L'Enseignement  secondaire  en  France. 


142  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

submit  to  the  degree  of  restraint  once  deemed  wise  as  well 
as  usual.  This  fundamental  proposition  the  college,  whether 
it  will  or  no,  must  recognize;  and,  recognizing,  adapt  itself 
thereto.  For  the  youth  in  question,  things  must  accordingly 
be  made  easy  and  attractive ;  the  dose  must  be  sugar-coated. 
Anything  approaching  to  compulsory  mental  discipline,  "if 
now  enforced,  would/'  it  is  confidently  asserted,  "have  the 
singular  merit  of  speedily  emptying  institutions  like  Harvard 
and  Yale;"  although  those  advocating  a  recurrence  to  that 
old-time  process  "seem  to  ignore  so  interesting  a  probabil- 
ity." Thus  prescribed  courses  of  study  are  out  of  date,  and 
rigid  tests  will  no  longer  go  down;  the  college  which  insists 
upon  such  will  simply  lose  its  business.  In  these  days  it  has 
got  to  compete  for  its  patronage;  and  the  institution  which 
knows  how  to  suit  its  goods  to  the  taste  of  its  patrons  will 
attract  the  customers. 

And  in  this  view  there  is  unquestionably  a  great  deal  of 
sound  market-place  sense  of  the  degree-mill  brand.  It  is, 
moreover,  further  argued  in  the  same  line  that,  after  all,  it 
makes  no  great  difference.  In  this  old-fashioned  talk  of  dis- 
cipline, training,  high  scholarship,  etc.,  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  cant  and  nonsense.  We  have  changed  all  that!  The  proper 
ideal  for  the  young  man  to  hold  out  for  himself  is  to  be  sure 
"to  get  there;"  the  "there,"  in  his  case,  being  a  good  sala- 
ried place,  or  a  recognized  success  in  some  calling,  profes- 
sional or  "on  the  street."  And,  as  matter  of  practical  ex- 
perience, it  is  found  that  business  concerns  looking  for  young 
men  now  care  very  little  for  scholarship,  and  that  sort  of 
thing;  on  the  contrary,  they  find  as  a  rule  the  best  material 
for  their  purpose  in  young  fellows  who  have  knocked  about 
among  their  equals,  enjoyed  a  good  athletic  record,  and  pre- 
sently settle  down  in  a  sensible  way  to  the  actualities  of  life. 
So,  after  all,  what  does  it  matter  ?  The  American  boy  is  a 
species  by  himself,  and  must  be  treated  and  humored  as  such. 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  143 

Anyhow,  the  college  must  not  lose  its  business.  If  it  once 
does,  it  may  as  well  in  these  days  shut  up  shop  altogether. 
It  will  certainly  "get  left." 

If  it  is  replied  that  scant  justice  is  here  done  to  the  Ameri- 
can boy,  or  even  to  the  era  of  athleticism,  and  the  cases  of 
the  Academy  at  West  Point  and  the  Massachusetts  Institute 
of  Technology  are  cited  to  show  that  strictly  prescribed 
courses  may  be  severely  enforced  by  instructors,  and  labo- 
riously followed  up  by  the  student  body,  —  if  this  is  urged, 
the  answer  is  immediate:  Such  point  is  well  taken;  but,  in 
the  cases  instanced,  the  student  looks  to  a  career,  or  salaried 
place,  to  be  provided  on  graduation  by  or  through  the  insti- 
tution. In  view  of  that  he  will  submit  to  discipline  and 
undergo  labor.  But  what  does  the  college  offer?  Nothing 
but  education  pure  and  simple.  The  American  boy  of  to-day 
will  not  submit  to  severe  rule  and  training  on  any  such  one- 
sided conditions. 

This,  of  course,  is  an  exaggerated  statement  of  the  case. 
The  time-honored  cant,  unconscious  subterfuge  and  sincere 
self-deception  which  generally  prevail  in  those  college  cir- 
cles where  such  views  are  guardedly  expressed  are  here 
thrown  aside  and  the  case  is  presented  in  cold,  brutal  naked- 
ness, —  a  nakedness  which  not  a  few  will  doubtless  pro- 
nounce absolutely  indecent.  None  the  less,  there  it  is;  and 
it  is  that  philistine  spirit  of  the  market-place,  —  the  spirit 
of  an  age  energetic,  practical,  and  generous  beyond  precedent, 
but,  withal,  noticeably  game-going,  magazine-reading  and 
salary-securing,  —  with  which  the  American  college  finds 
itself  confronted.    What  will  it  do  ? 

Hitherto  it  has  experimented.  It  is  experimenting  now. 
It  will  continue  to  experiment  for  some  time  to  come.  The 
"adviser,"  the  "preceptor,"  the  "tutorial  influence"  is  the 
fad  of  the  day;  and,  like  other  fads,  it  must  run  its  course. 
But,  as  already  observed,  to  the  more  reflective  on- looker, 


144  THREE  0>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

deeply  interested  in  the  college  and  in  closer  touch  with  active 
life  and  the  rushing  world  that  now  is,  it  seems  very  ques- 
tionable whether  academic  salvation  will  there  be  found. 
The  remedy,  some  such  apprehend,  must,  to  be  really  found, 
be  sought  deeper  down.  The  college  must  get  nearer  to  the 
world.  Recognizing  actualities,  it  must  adapt  itself  to  them 
in  so  far  as  to  prove  itself  a  guiding,  because  sympathetic 
and  intelligent,  educational  force. 

To  do  this  effectually,  must  not  the  old  traditional  college 
—  the  college  of  the  fathers  —  be  broken  up  and  wholly 
disappear;  be  sent,  respectfully  but  finally,  into  the  limbo 
of  the  past,  —  relegated  thereto  as  a  thing  which  has  done 
its  destined  work  ?  The  day  of  the  exclusive  A.M.  degree  at 
the  expiration  of  a  uniform  fixed  course  of  study  is  over; 
and,  in  future,  college  courses  and  college  degrees,  and  con- 
sequently colleges  themselves,  must  be  differentiated  and 
adapted  to  more  clearly  defined  ends.  In  an  educational  way 
we  are  continually  borrowing,  —  going  abroad  to  find  some- 
thing to  supply  deficiencies  in  our  existing  system,  —  de- 
ficiencies made  apparent  by  changes  coming  about  or  brought 
about  in  conditions  strictly  American.  This  proposal  or 
makeshift  is  said  to  be  German,  that  English,  the  other 
French.  Then,  applying  such  to  American  conditions  we  are 
surprised  that  they  will  not  work.  "Made  in  Germany "  has 
of  late  years  been  the  favorite  educational  brand.  It  is  still 
popular.  Meanwhile,  so  far  as  college  education  is  concerned, 
is  the  German  brand  wholly  adapted  to  the  American  mar- 
ket? That  it  is  so  is  very  open  to  question.  A  thoughtful 
and  well-informed  English  writer  thus  recently  expresses 
himself  in  a  way  quite  as  applicable  to  our  American  con- 
ditions as  to  those  of  his  own  country:  "The  [German]  stu- 
dent, after  having  been  under  strict  discipline  so  long  as  he 
is  at  school,  where  the  curriculum  ensures  him  a  broad  basis 
of  liberal  education,  is  free  from  the  moment  he  enters  the 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  145 

university  to  follow  any  branch  of  study  he  likes  and  with 
whatever  amount  of  zeal  he  likes.  He  can  flit  from  professor 
to  professor,  and  from  university  to  university,  in  pursuit  of 
the  special  course  of  study  he  has  marked  out  for  himself. 
.  .  .  The  high  value  of  the  German  universities  as  scientific 
institutions  is  undeniable.  But  before  [those  enamoured  with 
it]  advocate  the  adoption  of  a  similar  system  in  this  country, 
it  will  be  as  well  to  be  clear  in  their  own  minds  as  to  their 
ideal  of  university  education.  So  far  as  the  object  of  a  univer- 
sity is  the  advancement  of  learning  or  the  training  of  special- 
ists, the  German  system  (given  the  above-mentioned  driving 
power  of  a  zeal  for  knowledge)  achieves  the  end  of  its  exist- 
ence; but  so  far  as  it  aims  at  training  the  average  man,  espe- 
cially the  average  man  of  the  governing  classes  —  in  short 
at  forming  character  —  its  merits  are  less  conspicuous.  .  .  . 
It  is,  in  fact,  admitted  that  the  German  university  system  is 
tending  to  confine  itself  more  and  more  to  the  production  of 
specialists,  to  the  exclusion  of  general  education." 

Character-building,  it  is  submitted,  is  what  we  in  America 
most  need  also;  and  character-building  should  be  the  highest, 
though  by  no  means  the  sole,  function  of  the  college.  But 
to  insure  in  some  degree  the  building  of  character,  must  not 
the  college  recognize  conditions,  and  differentiate  itself  to 
meet  and  satisfy  them? 

Finally,  then,  has  not  the  time  come  to  do  away  with  the 
single  college,  the  uniform  course,  and  the  one  degree  ?  Does 
not  the  American  world  ask  for  something  else  ?  It  so  ap- 
pears; and  hence,  unrest.  Nor  is  the  demand  of  the  world 
unreasonable.  Education  now  exacts  too  much  time  in  the 
case  of  the  average  youth,  —  an  unnecessary  amount  of  time 
if  the  end  to  be  attained  is  kept  steadily  and  intelligently  in 
view.  Would  it  not,  for  instance,  be  practicable  as  well  as 
best  for  Harvard  to  have  different  colleges  giving  different 
degrees  for  different  courses  of  study,  all  to  feed  the  univer- 


146  THREE  <E>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

sity  ?  The  machinery  would  then  be  adapted  to  the  ultimate 
end  in  view.  The  ideals  —  material,  utilitarian,  scholastic, 
literary  —  would  be  in  accord  therewith.  The  gymnasium, 
or  college,  with  a  two  years'  disciplinary  course,  as  in  Ger- 
many, would  feed  the  scientific  school,  giving  its  baccalau- 
reate degree;  the  college  of  three  years,  more  or  less,  with  its 
special  -degree  also,  would  feed  the  professional  schools;  the 
college  of  four  years  would  be  designed  to  build  character, 
and  supply  the  purely  liberal  education.  The  last  might  then 
be  small,  or  it  might  be  large ;  but,  in  its  ideals  and  methods, 
it  could  at  least  be  scholarly,  and  present  some  degree  of 
repose.  What  is  required  in  each  case  is  not  the  same.  It 
is  so  far,  indeed,  from  being  the  same  as  to  be  altogether 
different.  Why  then  insist  on  one  baccalaureate  degree  and 
one  term  of  study  ?  Discipline  and  adaptedness  of  means 
to  end  are  what  is  needed  in  each  case;  but  beyond  these 
there  is  difference  in  all  respects,  —  time,  methods,  cost 
and  aim. 

To  carry  out  this  idea  —  a  purely  American  idea  to  meet 
purely  American  conditions  —  a  dozen  or  twenty  colleges  — 
or  sublimated  preparatory  schools  —  might  possibly  in  the 
case  of  Harvard  be  now,  or  if  not  now  then  ultimately,  de- 
sirable in  place  of  the  one  which  now  exists.  Yet  they  would 
in  their  aggregate  constitute  Harvard.  Nor  is  the  process  of 
evolution  to  such  a  result  so  remote  from  what  is  now  going 
on  as  might  at  first  be  supposed;  neither  would  a  gradual 
change  necessarily  imply  any  impossible,  or,  indeed,  excess- 
ive outlay.  The  adviser,  or  preceptor,  of  to-day  might 
almost  imperceptibly  develop  into  the  head  of  the  college,  — 
he  would  become  Master  of  Massachusetts,  or  of  Holworthy, 
or  of  McKay.  The  traditional  dormitory  has  already  become 
the  modern  privately  managed  "Hall."  Following  easily 
and  naturally  in  the  apartment-house  line  of  development 
so  familiar  now,  the  privately  managed  "Hall,"  endowed  by 


SUPPLEMENTARY   NOTE  147 

bequest  or,  better  yet,  through  the  generosity  of  a  living 
benefactor,  would  naturally  enough  become  the  college  of 
the  future,  with  its  chambers,  accommodating  under  the 
presidency  of  one  master  perhaps  an  hundred  students. 
The  entire  group  of  these  organisms,  workiDg  to  the  same 
or  to  different  ends,  would  constitute  the  college,  —  differ- 
entiated, yet  each  part  individual  and  complete  in  itself,  a 
segment  of  the  university  and  of  Harvard. 

And,  under  some  such  system,  organized,  and  yet  the  parts 
not  merged  to  the  extinction  of  all  identity,  meeting  the  re- 
quirements of  the  actual  world  whose  purposes  and  desires 
it  is  its  mission  to  study  and  fulfil,  —  under  such  a  system 
might  it  not  be  reasonable  to  indulge  the  hope  again  to  boast 
the  existence  of  a  complete  scholastic  institution;  an  institu- 
tion, small  in  numbers  possibly,  but  freed  from  the  exacting 
demands  of  the  specialist,  and  the  eager  or  needy  professional 
student?  There,  exempt  from  business  or  material  calls  or 
ideals,  the  scholar  could  be  trained,  feeding,  if  need  be,  even 
on  literature,  philosophy  and  the  humanities.  The  type  is 
one  worth  perpetuating;  but,  under  the  traditional  system 
still  in  vogue,  is  it  not  in  imminent  danger  of  becoming 
extinct  from  mere  stifling  in  an  uncongenial  atmosphere 
breathed  in  an  environment  devoted  to  material,  profes- 
sional and  scientific,  in  a  word,  bread-winning  and  moifey- 
getting,  aims  ? l 

Thus  far,  however,  the  old  educational  one-price  shop, 
renewed  and  replenished  with  fixtures  and  goods  made  in 
Germany  or  elsewhere,  has  hindered  the  realization  of  any 
such  ideal;  and,  unquestionably,  it  will  long  continue  so  to 
do.  The  address,  to  which  this  will  serve  as  an  explanatory 
note,  is  merely  a  passing  contribution  to  a  debate  which  may 
weary,  but,  as  yet,  shows  no  sign  of  drawing  to  a  close. 

C.  F.  A. 

November  30,  1906. 

1  Supra,  p.  43. 


THE  JOURNEYMAN'S  RETROSPECT 


THE   JOURNEYMAN'S   RETROSPECT1 

Some  years  ago  a  distinguished  literary  character,  as 
well  as  accomplished  and  lovable  man,  —  since  gone 
over  to  the  silent  majority,  —  stood  here,  as  I  now  am 
standing,  having  a  few  hours  before  received  Harvard's 
highest  degree.  Not  himself  a  child  of  the  University, 
he  had  been  invited  here  a  stranger  —  though  in  Cam- 
bridge he  was  by  no  means  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land 

—  to  receive  well-deserved  recognition  for  the  good 
life-work  he  had  done,  and  the  high  standard  of  char- 
acter he  had  ever  maintained.  When  called  upon  by 
the  presiding  officer  of  that  occasion,  as  I  now  am  called 
upon  by  you,  he  responded  by  saying  that  the  day  be- 
fore he  had  left  his  New  York  home  to  come  to  Cam- 
bridge a  simple,  ordinary  man;  he  would  go  back, 
"  ennobled." 

In  America,  patents  of  nobility  may  not  be  conferred, 

—  the  fundamental  law  itself  inhibits;  so,  when  from 
the  mother  country  the  name  of  Sir  Henry  Irving  comes 
sounding  across  the  Atlantic,  we  cannot  answer  in 
reply  with  a  Sir  Joseph  Jefferson,  but  we  do  not  less, 
perhaps,  in  honor  of  great  Shakespeare's  craft,  by  in- 
viting him,2  to  whom  you  have  this  day  given  the 
greatest  ovation  on  any  bestowed,  to  come  up  and  join 
the  family  circle  which  surrounds  America's  oldest 
Alma  Mater.    Still,  figurative  though  it  was,  for  George 

1  Speech  at  the  Harvard  Alumni  Dinner,  Commencement  Day, 
Wednesday,  June  26,  1895. 

2  The  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  had,  at  the  close  of  the  day's  Com- 
mencement exercises,  been  conferred  on  the  late  Joseph  Jefferson. 


152  THREE   <£  B   K  ADDRESSES 

William  Curtis  to  refer  to  Harvard's  honorary  degree 
as  an  ennoblement  was  a  graceful  form  of  speech; 
but  I,  to  the  manner  born,  stand  here  under  similar 
circumstances  in  a  different  spirit.  Memory  insensibly 
reverts  to  other  days,  —  other  scenes. 

Forty-two  years  ago  President  Eliot  and  I  passed 
each  other  on  the  steps  of  University  Hall,  —  he  com- 
ing down  them  with  his  freshly  signed  bachelor's  de- 
gree in  his  hand,  while  I  ascended  them  an  anxious 
candidate  for  admission  to  the  College.  His  appren- 
ticeship was  over;  mine  was  about  to  begin.  For 
twenty-six  eventful  years  now  he  has  presided  over  the 
destinies  of  the  University,  and  at  last  we  meet  here 
again;  I  to  receive  from  his  hands  the  diploma  which 
signifies  that  the  days  of  my  travels,  —  my  Wander  jahre, 
—  as  well  as  my  apprenticeship,  are  over,  and  that 
the  journeyman  is  at  length  admitted  to  the  circle  of 
Master- workmen . 

So,  while  Mr.  Curtis  declared  that  he  went  away 
from  here  with  a  sense  of  ennoblement,  my  inclination 
is  to  sit  down,  not  metaphorically  but  in  fact,  on  yon- 
der steps  of  University  Hall,  and  think  for  a  little  — 
somewhat  wearily,  perhaps  —  over  the  things  I  have 
seen  and  the  lessons  I  have  learned  since  I  first  as- 
cended those  steps  when  the  last  half  of  the  century 
now  ending  had  only  just  begun,  —  an  interval  longer 
than  that  during  which  the  children  of  Israel  were  con- 
demned to  tarry  in  the  wilderness! 

And,  were  I  so  to  do,  I  am  fain  to  confess  two  feel- 
ings would  predominate:  wonder  and  admiration, — 
wonder  over  the  age  in  which  I  have  lived,  mingled 
with  admiration  for  the  results  which  in  it  have  been 
accomplished  and  the  heroism  displayed.  And  yet  this 
was  not  altogether  what  the  prophet  voices  of  my 


THE  JOURNEYMAN'S  RETROSPECT        153 

apprenticeship  had,  I  remember,  led  me  to  expect;  for 
in  those  days,  and  to  a  greater  degree  than  seems  to 
be  the  case  at  present,  we  had  here  at  Cambridge 
prophet  voices  which  in  living  words  continually  ex- 
horted us.  Such  were  Tennyson,  Thackeray,  Emerson, 
and,  perhaps,  most  of  all  Carlyle,  —  Thomas  Carlyle, 
with  his  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship,  his  Latter  Day 
Pamphlets,  his  worship  of  the  Past  and  his  scorn 
for  the  Present,  his  contempt  for  what  he  taught  us  to 
term  this  "rag-gathering  age."  We  sat  at  the  feet  of 
the  great  literary  artist,  our  'prentice  ears  drank  in  his 
utterances;  to  us  he  was  inspired. 

The  literary  artist  remains.  As  such  we  bow  down 
before  him  now  even  more  than  we  bowed  down  be- 
fore him  then;  but  how  different  have  we  found  the 
age  in  which  our  lot  was  cast  from  that  he  had  taught 
us  to  expect!  I  have  been  but  a  journeyman.  Only  to 
a  small,  a  very  small  extent,  I  know,  can  I,  like  the 
Ulysses  of  that  other  of  our  prophet  voices,  declare 

"I  am  a  part  of  all  that  I  have  met." 
None  the  less, 

"Much  have  I  seen  and  known;  cities  of  men 
And  manners,  climates,  councils,  governments; 
And  drunk  delight  of  battle  with  my  peers, 
Far  on  the  ringing  plains  of  windy  Troy." 

We  were  told  in  those,  our  'prentice  days,  of  the 
heroism  of  the  past  and  the  materialism  of  our  present, 
when  "who  but  a  fool  would  have  faith  in  a  tradesman's 
wares  or  his  word,"  and  "only  not  all  men  lied;"  and 
yet,  when,  in  1853,  you,  Mr.  President,  the  young 
journeyman,  descended,  as  I,  the  coming  apprentice, 
ascended  those  steps,  "the  cobweb  woven  across  the 
cannon's  mouth"  still  shook  "its  threaded  tears  in  the 
wind."   Eight  years  later  the  cobweb  was  swept  away; 


154  THREE  3>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

and  though,  as  the  names  graven  on  the  tablets  at  the 
entrance  of  this  hall  bear  witness,  "many  were  crushed 
in  the  clash  of  jarring  claims,"  yet  we  too  felt  the  heart 
of  a  people  beat  with  one  desire,  and  witnessed  the  sud- 
den making  of  splendid  names.  I  detract  nothing  from 
the  halo  of  knighthood  which  surrounds  the  heads  of 
Sidney  and  of  Bayard;  but  I  was  the  contemporary 
and  friend  of  Savage,  of  Lowell  and  of  Shaw.  I  had 
read  of  battles  and  "the  imminent  deadly  breach;" 
but  it  was  given  me  to  stand  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg 
when  the  solid  earth  trembled  under  the  assault  of  that 
Confederate  Virginian  column,  then  performing  a  feat 
of  arms  than  which  I  verily  believe  none  in  all  re- 
corded warfare  was  ever  more  persistent,  more  deadly, 
or  more  heroic. 

And  our  prophet  spoke  to  us  of  the  beauty  of  silent 
work,  and  he  held  up  before  us  the  sturdy  patience  of 
the  past  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  garrulous  self-evi- 
dence of  that  deteriorated  present,  of  which  we  were 
to  be  a  part;  and  yet,  scarcely  did  we  stand  on  the 
threshold  of  our  time,  when  a  modest  English  natu- 
ralist and  observer  broke  years  of  silence  by  quietly 
uttering  the  word  which  relegated  to  the  domain  of 
fable  that  which,  since  the  days  of  Moses,  had  been 
accepted  as  the  foundation  of  religious  belief.  In  the 
time  of  our  apprenticeship  we  still  read  of  the  mystery 
of  Africa  in  the  pages  of  Herodotus,  while  the  sources 
of  the  Nile  were  as  unknown  to  our  world  as  to  the 
world  of  the  Pharaohs;  then  one  day  a  patient,  long- 
suffering,  solitary  explorer  emerged  from  the  wilderness, 
and  the  secret  was  revealed.  In  our  own  time  and 
before  our  purblind  eyes,  scarcely  realizing  what  they 
saw  or  knowing  enough  to  wonder,  Livingstone  eclipsed 
Columbus,  and  Darwin  rewrote  Genesis. 


THE  JOURNEYMAN'S  RETROSPECT       155 

The  Paladin  we  had  been  told  was  a  thing  of  the  past : 
ours  was  the  era  of  the  commonplace;  and,  lo!  Gari- 
baldi burst  like  a  rocket  above  the  horizon,  and  the 
legends  of  Colchis  and  the  Crusader  were  eclipsed  by 
the  newspaper  record  of  current  events. 

The  eloquent  voice  from  Cheyne  Row  still  echoed  in 
our  ears,  lamenting  the  degeneracy  of  a  time  given  over 
to  idle  talk  and  the  worship  of  mammon,  —  defiled  by 
charlatans  and  devoid  of  workers;  and  in  answer,  as 
it  were,  Cavour  and  Lincoln  and  Bismarck  crossed  the 
world's  stage  before  us,  and  joined  the  immortals. 

We  saw  a  dreaming  adventurer,  in  the  name  of  a 
legend,  possess  himself  of  France  and  of  imperial  power. 
A  structure  of  tinsel  was  reared,  and  glittered  in  the 
midst  of  an  age  of  actualities.  Then  all  at  once  came 
the  nineteenth-century  Nemesis,  and,  eclipsing  the 
avenging  deity  of  which  we  had  read  in  our  classics, 
drowned  in  blood  and  obliterated  with  iron  the  shams 
and  the  charlatans  who,  our  teacher  had  told  us,  were 
the  essence  and  characteristic  of  the  age. 

And  the  College,  —  the  Alma  Mater !  —  she  who 
to-day  has  placed  me  above  the  rank  of  journeyman,  — 
what  changes  has  she  witnessed  during  those  years  of 
probation  ?  —  rather  what  changes  has  she  not  wit- 
nessed! Of  those  —  president,  professors,  instructors, 
and  officers  —  connected  with  it  then,  two  only  remain ; 
but  the  young  bachelor  of  arts,  who  degree  in  hand  came 
down  the  steps  I  was  ascending,  has  for  more  than  half 
those  two  and  forty  years  presided  over  the  destinies 
of  the  University,  and,  under  the  impulse  of  his  strong 
will  and  receptive  mind,  we  have  seen  the  simple,  tra- 
ditional College  of  the  first  half  of  the  century  develop 
into  the  differentiated  University  of  the  latter  half.  In 
1856,  when  I  received  from  the   university  my  first 


156  THREE  3>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

diploma,  the  college  numbered  in  the  aggregate  of  all 
its  classes  fewer  students  than  are  found  in  the  average 
single  class  of  to-day.  And  in  the  meanwhile  what  have 
her  alumni  done  for  the  Alma  Mater?  In  1853,  when 
my  apprenticeship  began,  the  accumulated  endow- 
ment of  the  more  than  two  centuries  which  preceded 
amounted  to  less  than  one  million  of  dollars;  the  gifts 
and  bequests  of  the  twoscore  years  covered  by  my  ap- 
prenticeship and  travels  have  added  to  the  one  million 
over  ten  millions!  And  this,  we  were  taught,  was  the 
"rag-gathering  age"  of  a  "trivial,  jeering,  withered, 
unbelieving"  generation!  —  at  least,  it  gave! 

Thus,  as  I  stand  here  to-day  in  the  high  places  of 
the  University  and  try  to  speak  of  the  lessons  and  the 
theories  of  life  which  my  travels  have  taught  me,  —  as 
I  pause  for  a  brief  space  by  the  well-remembered  col- 
lege steps  which  more  than  forty  classes  have  since  gone 
up  and  descended,  and,  while  doing  so,  look  back  over 
the  long  vista  of  probation,  — my  impulse  is  to  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  greatness  and  splendor,  not  to  the  decadence 
and  meanness,  of  the  age  of  which  I  have  been  a  part. 
My  eyes  too  have  seen  great  men  accomplishing  great 
results,  —  I  have  lived  and  done  journeyman  work  in 
a  time  than  which  none  history  records  has  been  more 
steadfast  and  faithful  in  labor,  more  generous  in  gift, 
or  more  fruitful  in  results;  none  so  beneficent,  none  so 
philanthropic;  none  more  heroic  of  purpose,  none  more 
romantic  in  act. 

More  than  thirty  years  ago,  while  those  cannon  of 
Gettysburg  were  booming  in  my  ears,  sounding  the 
diapason  of  that  desperate  onslaught  to  which  I  have 
already  referred,  there  came  up  in  my  memory  these 
lines  from  the  Samson  Agonistes: 


THE  JOURNEYMAN'S  RETROSPECT       157 

"All  is  best,  though  we  oft  doubt, 
What  th'  unsearchable  dispose 
Of  highest  wisdom  brings  about, 
And  ever  best  found  in  the  close. 
Oft  he  seems  to  hide  his  face, 
But  unexpectedly  returns, 
And  to  his  faithful  champion  will  in  place 
Bear  witness  gloriously." 

These  lines,  I  say,  I  repeated  over  and  over  to  my- 
self, somewhat  mechanically  I  suppose,  in  the  dust  and 
heat  and  crash  of  that  July  day.  I  was  young  then; 
I  am  young  no  longer.  But,  now  as  then,  those  verses 
from  Milton's  triumphant  choral  chant  bring  to  me, 
clad  in  seventeenth-century  words  and  thought,  the 
ideas  of  evolution,  continuity,  environment  and  pro- 
gression, and,  above  and  beyond  all,  abiding  faith  in 
man  and  in  our  mother  age,  which  are  the  lamps  the 
last  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  lit  whereby 
the  steps  of  the  twentieth  century  shall  be  guided. 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE 


THE   HARVARD   TUITION   FEE1 

The  financial  result  of  the  year  was  a  deficit  of 
),403.07  in  the  combined  account  of  the  College,  Sci- 
entific School,  Graduate  School  and  Library.  .  .  .  The 
larger  part  of  the  new  expenditure  [of  the  year]  went 
to  increase  the  amount  of  instruction  offered;  but  a 
significant  portion  was  used  to  improve  the  instruction 
already  offered,  particularly  in  the  elementary  courses 
resorted  to  by  large  numbers  of  students." 

"It  is  the  clear  duty  of  the  Corporation  to  repair,  as 
soon  as  possible,  the  mistake  they  made  in  the  too  large 
increase  of  the  salary  list  for  the  year  1902-3.  .  .  .  This 
reduction  can  be  made  by  diminishing  the  number  of 
instructors  and  assistants  annually  appointed.  There 
will  result  some  diminution  in  the  number  of  courses 
of  instruction  offered,  and  some  redistribution  of  work 
among  professors  and  instructors  holding  permanent 
appointments;  but,  in  general,  the  reductions  can  be 
made  without  seriously  affecting  the  interests  of  any 
considerable  number  of  the  undergraduates." 

The  foregoing  extracts  from  the  Annual  Report  (pp. 
48-50)  of  President  Eliot  are  at  once  significant  and 
suggestive.2  They  are  significant,  as  disclosing  the  fail- 

1  From  the  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine  for  September,  1904. 

2  The  report  referred  to  was  that  for  the  academic  year  1902-3. 
In  his  report  for  the  year  1905-6,  President  Eliot  says  (pp.  55-6)  — 
"The  deficit  of  1905-6  in  the  combined  accounts  of  the  University, 
College,  Scientific  School  of  Arts  and  Sciences  and  Library  was 
$59,296.31,  the  largest  ever  experienced.  .  .  .  The  Corporation 
have  now  used  up  quick  capital  amounting  to  $488,841.69  by  this 
process  of  charging  annual  deficits  to  unrestricted  funds."  From 
the  foregoing  extract  from  the  last  report  of  President  Eliot  it  ap- 


162  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

ure  of  the  income  of  the  University  to  cover  its  present 
annual  outgo;  they  are  suggestive,  as  indicating  the 
way  in  which  the  Corporation  proposes  to  make  good 
the  deficit  thus  created.  The  situation  is  simple,  and 
in  no  way  unusual  In  pursuing  the  policy  of  instruc- 
tion heretofore  adopted,  and  in  meeting  the  increased 
expenses  thereby  forced  upon  it,  the  University  has 
exceeded  its  income,  and  economies  are  deemed  neces- 
sary; those  economies  are  to  be  effected  in  that  portion 
of  the  annual  expenditure  included  in  any  analysis  of 
outgo  under  the  head  of  Instruction,  or  Salaries. 

Harvard  thus  finds  itself  face  to  face  with  a  question 
of  policy  of  the  first  magnitude*.  In  order  to  decide  it 
understanding^  it  is  necessary  first  to  ascertain  the  real 
occasion  of  the  deficit.  The  outgo  of  the  University 
must  be  analyzed.  That  preliminary  disposed  of,  the 
question  of  policy  can  be  discussed. 

Is  then  the  deficit  which  now  confronts  the  Univer- 
sity due  to  preventable  waste,  calling  only  for  measures 
of  economy,  and  the  lopping  off  of  "  a  too  large  increase 
of  the  salary  list; "  or  is  it  a  necessary  incident  to  that 
multiplication  of  studies  inevitably  imposed  on  any 
university  which,  in  a  period  of  rapid  development  — 
material  and  social  —  endeavors  to  keep,  not  in  ad- 
vance of  its  environment,  but  only  abreast  of  the  for- 

pears  that  the  financial  necessities  discussed  in  the  paper  here 
reprinted,  and  for  which  a  remedy  was  suggested,  still  exist  but  in  a 
more  aggravated  form.  "It  seems  strange  that,  with  such  a  remark- 
able inflowing  of  gifts  for  several  years  past  [averaging,  in  the  four 
years  1902-3  to  1905-6,  a  little  less  than  two  millions  of  dollars 
annually],  it  should  be  necessary  to  discuss  the  means  of  overcoming 
a  large  annual  deficit.  .  .  .  The  explanation  is  simple.  Of  the  eight 
millions  of  gifts  in  four  years,  two  millions  went  to  increase  the 
scale  of  salaries.  .  .  .  Finally,  of  the  balance  of  the  four  years'  gifts, 
all  but  a  small  fraction  went  to  special  objects  designated  by  the 
givers." 


THE   HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  163 

ward  movement  of  that  environment?  No  better  test 
can  perhaps  be  applied  in  such  case  than  a  comparison 
between  the  present  and  the  past,  —  let  what  is  be  con- 
trasted with  what  was;  for  it  will  hardly  be  alleged 
that,  during  the  earlier  periods,  those  entrusted  with  the 
administration  of  Harvard's  affairs  erred  on  the  side 
of  extravagance,  or  were  addicted  to  waste.  Taking  for 
purpose  of  comparison  the  figures  given  in  the  Treas- 
urer's Report  for  the  last  year  preceding  the  com- 
mencement of  the  administration  of  President  Eliot,  — 
1867-68,  —  and  those  given  in  the  report  just  sub- 
mitted, —  that  of  1902-03,  —  and  dividing  the  ex- 
penses of  those  two  years  on  the  same  basis,  it  will  be 
found  that  they  were  as  follows: 

1867-68.  1902-03. 

Salaries    $78,330.76  $616,656.39 

Administrative  Expenses  .       17,210.84  145,987.07 

Miscellaneous  Expenses   .       52,583.91  363,587.93 

$148,125.51  $1,126,231.39 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  1902-03  the  amount  expended 
in  salaries  was  nearly  eight  times  what  was  so  expended 
in  1867-68;  the  cost  of  administration  had  multiplied 
over  eightfold;  miscellaneous  expenses  between  six  and 
sevenfold.  In  the  case  of  a  university  the  number  of 
degrees  conferred  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  out- 
put of  finished  product.  In  1868,  Harvard  University 
conferred  282  degrees;  in  1903,  it  conferred  1206.  It 
would  thus  appear  that  in  1903,  as  compared  with  1868, 
the  Harvard  educational  output  had  increased  4.31 
fold;  while  the  cost  of  running  the  institution  had  in- 
creased nearly  eightfold,  or,  speaking  exactly,  7.6  fold. 
The  increase  of  output  had,  therefore,  not  kept  pace 
with  the  increase  in  running  cost.  Measured  by  annual 
running  cost  and  output,  each  Harvard  degree  of  1903 


164  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

represented  an  expenditure  of  $950,  as  compared  with 
an  expenditure  of  $525  in  1868,  or  an  increase  of  close 
upon  81  per  cent. 

Of  the  entire  money  outgo  of  the  first  (1868)  period, 
approximately  53  per  cent,  was  devoted  to  the  pay- 
ment of  salaries,  and  55  per  cent,  was  so  devoted  in  the 
last  (1903)  period;  administrative  expenses  consumed 
12  per  cent,  of  the  increase  during  the  first,  and  13  per 
cent,  during  the  last;  miscellaneous  expenses  35  per 
cent,  during  the  first,  and  32  per  cent,  in  the  last.1  The 
division  is,  of  course,  more  or  less  arbitrary,  and  some- 
what general;  but  the  results  reached  are,  it  is  believed, 
sufficiently  accurate  for  present  purposes.  The  analysis 
is  noticeable  as  indicating  a  stability  in  the  division  of 
expenditures.  The  ratio  of  growth  in  annual  cost  has 
been  about  the  same  under  all  the  heads;  and  a  natural 
inference  might  hence  be  drawn  that  the  outgo  for  no 
one  department  had  increased  at  the  cost  of  the  others. 
Further  examination,  however,  suggests  grave  doubt 
as  to  the  correctness  of  this  inference. 

During  the  thirty-five  years  between  1868  and  1903, 
the  administrative  expenses  of  the  University  would 
seem  to  have  increased  in  the  aggregate  $128,776.23, 
or  nearly  sevenfold.  Measured  by  the  entire  number 
of  students  those  expenses  stood  at  $23.87  per  student 
in  1868;  in  1903  they  stood  at  $34.14,  —  an  increase 
of  $10.27.  In  view  of  the  multiplication  of  schools  and 
courses,  involving  of  necessity  additional  buildings  and 
plants  of  a  character  both  costly  and  complicated,  this 
increase  can  hardly  be  considered  excessive.    It  repre- 

1  Under  the  head  of  Miscellaneous  Expenses  in  this  division,  the 
following  are  included:  Botanic  Garden,  Herbarium,  Gymnasium, 
Library,  Bussey  Institution,  Peabody  Museum,  Observatory,  etc., 
and  all  general  expenses  and  repairs. 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  165 

sents  only  that  reasonable  expansion  of  outgo  neces- 
sarily incident  to  a  growth  at  once  rapid  and  complex. 
Nevertheless,  the  fact  must  be  noted  that,  under  the 
second  head,  —  Administrative  Expenses,  —  each  stu- 
dent in  1903  cost  the  University  43  per  cent,  more  than 
each  student  cost  it  in  1868. 

It  is  under  the  third  head  —  Miscellaneous  Ex- 
penses —  that  the  results  of  any  extravagance  in  man- 
agement would  naturally  become  apparent.  But  the 
increase  under  this  head,  as  under  the  second,  or  ad- 
ministrative head,  has  been  almost  exactly  sevenfold, 
with  a  fourfold  increase  in  the  number  of  students.  The 
cost  of  each  student  was  $72.93  in  1868;  in  1903  it  was 
$85.03.  Thus,  under  this  head,  each  student  in  1903 
cost  the  University  17  per  cent,  more  than  in  1868. 

The  great  item  of  all  university  cost  is,  however, 
tuition,  and  falls  under  the  head  of  Salaries.  The  de- 
velopment of  Harvard  as  respects  courses  of  instruction 
has,  during  the  Eliot  administration,  been  phenom- 
enal, and  a  source  of  pride  to  all  connected  with  the 
University.  In  1867-68  there  were  but  92  courses  in 
the  Academic  Department;  whereas  in  1903  there 
were  about  456  courses.  It  is  needless  to  point  out  that 
every  additional  course,  especially  if  post-graduate, 
imposes  on  the  University  a  disproportionate  expense. 
Some  special  courses  are  taken  by  few  students,  and, 
it  may  be,  by  one  only.1  It  goes  without  saying  that  in 

1  At  Yale,  it  is  stated  that,  out  of  181  studies,  70  are  taken  by 
fewer  than  ten  students  each ;  36  by  fewer  than  five;  8  by  fewer  than 
two,  and  11  by  a  single  student  each  only.  It  has  recently  (1903) 
been  asserted  that,  for  the  first  time  in  twenty-five  years,  Yale  has  this 
year  found  itself  compelled  "because  of  lack  of  funds"  to  reduce  its 
courses  from  263  in  number  to  249;  while  of  these  249  between  50 
and  60  "would  be  cut  out  unless  a  sufficient  number  of  students 
elected  them  to  make  it  worth  while  to  give  them." 


166  THREE  4>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

such  cases  the  tuition  of  the  student  costs  from  ten  to 
twenty,  or  more,  times  as  much  as  in  courses  largely 
attended. 

Under  these  conditions  the  increase  under  the  head 
of  Salaries  during  the  thirty-five  years  has  been  the 
same  as  under  the  other  heads,  —  roughly  speaking, 
sevenfold,  —  or  from  $78,330.76  to  $616,656.39.  The 
cost  of  each  student  was  $108.64  in  1868  and  $144.68 
in  1903.  Thus  in  the  matter  of  tuition  the  average  stu- 
dent in  1903  cost  the  University  $36.04,  or  33  per  cent., 
more  than  in  1868. 

Turning  now  from  students  to  instructors,  it  next 
appears  that,  while  the  University  is  steadily  increasing 
in  the  liberality  of  its  expenditure  so  far  as  students 
are  concerned,  it  is  elsewhere  effecting  economies.  An 
examination  of  the  Treasurer's  Reports  for  the  two 
periods  selected  for  comparison  shows  that,  while  the 
higher  salaries  paid  by  the  University  have,  during 
the  interval  of  thirty-five  years,  been  raised,  and  most 
properly  raised,  from  25  per  cent,  to  40  per  cent.,  the 
number  of  instructors  receiving  a  lower  grade  of 
compensation  has  been  disproportionately  increased. 
The  average  amount  paid  per  instructor  has  thus  been 
decreased  from  $3444.78  in  1867-68  to  $2070.28  in 
1902-03,  —  a  diminution  of  some  40  per  cent.1 

The  foregoing  analysis  is  of  necessity  partial  and 

1  These  figures  are  believed  to  be  sufficiently  accurate  for  present 
purposes;  but  they  are  necessarily  deceptive  to  a  certain  extent.  The 
system  of  instruction  has  changed  greatly  with  the  increase  in  the 
number  both  of  students  and  courses.  The  number  of  instructors 
who  give  only  a  portion  of  their  time  to  the  work  of  tuition,  and 
look  to  other  sources  for  support,  has  increased  out  of  proportion  to 
the  body  of  professional  teachers  attached  to  the  University.  Due 
allowance  for  this  fact  will  not,  however,  affect  the  substantial  cor- 
rectness of  the  conclusion  drawn. 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  167 

incomplete.  It  would  be  desirable  in  this  connection 
thoroughly  to  go  through  the  accounts  of  the  Univer- 
sity for  the  period  taken;  but  to  do  this  would  involve 
a  vast  amount  of  labor  and  great  statistical  skill.  As 
a  result  of  the  figures  presented,  and  the  comparison 
made,  it  would,  however,  appear  that,  during  the  Eliot 
administration,  the  number  of  students  has  quadrupled; 
and,  in  every  division  of  expenditure,  there  has  been 
a  marked  increase  of  outgo  on  the  average  individual 
student  over  any  income  received  from  him.  As  a  re- 
sult, each  Harvard  degree  now  conferred  represents 
an  outgo  over  80  per  cent,  greater  than  it  represented 
in  1868.  The  corps  of  instructors  has  been  increased 
commensurately  with  the  increase  of  students;  but 
the  average  compensation  paid  the  instructors  has  di- 
minished. Accordingly,  in  1902-03,  as  compared  with 
1867-68,  28  per  cent,  more  per  student  was  paid  out  in 
excess  of  what  the  student  paid  in,  on  four  times  the 
number  of  students;  while  a  40  per  cent,  decrease  took 
place  in  the  average  compensation  of  those  engaged  in 
teaching  those  students.  That,  under  these  circum- 
stances, the  resulting  deficit  between  the  income  and 
outgo  of  the  University  is  not  much  more  considerable 
than  that  now  reported  is  due  to  three  causes:  (1)  the 
income  from  a  large  increase,  through  gift  and  bequest, 
in  the  endowment  of  the  University;  (2)  the  decrease 
in  the  average  compensation  paid  per  instructor;  and 
(3)  the  increase  in  the  number  of  students  attending 
certain  standard  courses. 

Harvard  University  has  now  acquired  a  position  in 
the  country  which,  from  an  educational  point  of  view, 
is  almost  unique.  It  is,  and  should  remain,  an  institu- 
tion of  advanced  education,  where  practically  any 
branch  of  learning  can  be  pursued  by  those,  many  or 


168  THREE  <I>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

few,  seeking  instruction  in  it.  The  special  courses  al- 
ready provided  to  that  end  may  be  numerous  and  costly, 
—  indeed,  they  unquestionably  are  both;  nevertheless 
few  would  be  found  willing  to  maintain  that  these 
special  courses  offer  a  field  either  fruitful  or  inviting  in 
which  to  practice  a  niggardly  economy.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  must  be  at  once  conceded,  such  a  gener- 
ous array  of  courses  in  the  most  developed  branches  of 
education  cannot  be  maintained  except  through  a  heavy 
expenditure.  It  of  necessity  involves  a  "large  increase 
of  the  salary  list;"  unless,  indeed,  the  teaching  force 
is  to  be  recruited  exclusively  from  those  who,  having 
other  and  independent  means  of  support,  feel  an  altru- 
istic call  to  instruct.  For  a  great  university  this,  how- 
ever, is  obviously  an  uncertain  reliance,  besides  being 
otherwise  somewhat  questionable.  And  this  brings  the 
discussion  back  to  the  one  suggestive  result  of  the  com- 
parison of  periods  just  presented,  —  the  decrease  in  the 
average  compensation  of  instructors.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  no  single  salary  now  paid  by  Harvard  University 
can  be  pronounced  more  than  moderate.  Measured, 
indeed,  by  the  standard  of  living  expenses  in  1868  as 
compared  with  that  now  prevailing,  it  is  indisputable 
that  the  compensation  paid  those  engaged  in  instruc- 
tion is  neither  so  large  as  it  was,  nor  as  it  should  be. 
For  men  to  devote  themselves  to  teaching  under  exist- 
ing conditions  implies,  as  every  one  must  realize,  a  con- 
tinually increasing  sacrifice.  From  a  material  point  of 
view  the  prizes  of  an  educational  career  do  not  compare 
with  those  possible  to  be  won  in  American  business  or 
professional  life ;  and  the  sacrifice  thus  involved  should 
not  be  aggravated.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  be  a  con- 
summation greatly  to  be  wished  could  the  Harvard 
salaries,  throughout  the  list,  be  increased  by  at  least 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  169 

50  per  cent.   This,  however,  under  existing  conditions, 
is  manifestly  impracticable. 

Efforts  at  economy  through  a  reduction  of  expenses 
should  never  be  discouraged  in  universities,  any  more 
than  in  business  corporations  or  governmental  depart- 
ments. Such  always  and  everywhere  are  both  in  order 
and  commendable :  but  it  is  worse  than  futile,  —  it  is 
self-deceptive  to  suppose  that  in  the  important  matter 
of  engaging  competent  instructive  ability,  economy  can 
be  carried  beyond  a  certain  point  without  injurious  re- 
sults. While  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,  the  field 
in  which  he  labors  should  be  taken  into  some  account; 
and  the  hire  of  an  instructor  of  Harvard  University 
should  be  at  least  what  is  known  as  a  living  wage. 
Whether,  if  the  present  policy  is  pursued,  —  much  more 
if  it  is  intensified,  —  what  the  average  instructor  re- 
ceives will  long  continue  to  be  so  deemed,  —  much  less 
will  attract  and  retain  in  the  University's  employ  the 
necessary  talent,  —  is  open  to  serious  question.  And, 
curiously  enough,  the  contention  of  President  Eliot  that 
last  year's  deficit  can  be  made  good  "without  seriously 
affecting  the  interests  of  any  considerable  number  of 
the  undergraduates  by  diminishing  the  number  of  in- 
structors and  assistants  annually  appointed"  is,  as  soon 
as  made,  emphatically  —  almost  rudely  —  contro- 
verted in  the  formal  report  of  a  committee  of  the  Faculty 
of  Arts  and  Sciences  appointed  under  a  vote  passed 
May  27, 1902.  According  to  that  committee  the  respon- 
sibility of  seeing  that  the  work  of  the  students  taking 
the  academic  courses  is  properly  done  "must  rest  chiefly 
with  the  assistants,  who  come  into  more  immediate 
contact  with  the  students.  As  the  University  is  now 
organized,  these  assistants  are  necessarily  young  men, 
and  therefore  without  experience  in  teaching.1  The 
1  Supra,  p.  137. 


170  THREE   <l>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

committee  feels  the  extreme  importance  of  selecting 
the  very  best  available  men,  and  the  false  economy  in 
failure  to  get  them  by  reason  of  insufficient  salaries. 
Some  of  the  men  are  now  as  good  as  could  be  desired, 
but  even  these  have  charge  of  too  many  students.  The 
need  of  a  larger  number  of  competent  assistants  is  felt 
by  instructors  and  students  alike."  ' 

Thus  the  situation  is  simple,  and  can  be  put  in  few 
words:  While,  during  the  term  of  President  Eliot, 
the  endowment  of  the  University  has  been  vastly  in- 
creased, both  the  number  of  students  and  their  educa- 
tional requirements  have  increased  in  yet  greater  ratio. 
Viewed  from  a  purely  commercial  standpoint,  the  Uni- 
versity finds  itself  in  the  not  uncommon  position  of  a 
man  whose  business  has  extended  out  of  proportion  to 
his  plant.  To  maintain  his  former  standard  of  excel- 
lence, he  must,  therefore,  either  restrict  his  output  or 
devise  some  means  of  increasing  his  income.  The  outgo 
is  neither  extravagant,  nor  considering  the  work  done 
excessive.  On  the  contrary,  in  its  most  essential  fea- 
ture, economy  has  been  carried  to  the  extreme  limit  of 
safety. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  would,  on  the  whole, 
seem  to  be  less  difficult,  and  far  more  in  consonance 
with  the  true  interests  of  the  University,  to  increase  its 
income  than  to  decrease  its  outgo.  It  remains  to  con- 
sider the  source  from  which  the  necessary  increase  may 
most  fairly  as  well  as  easily  be  derived. 

1  See  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine  for  June,  1904,  vol.  12,  p.  616. 
This  very  suggestive  report,  drawn  up  apparently  by  Professor  LeB. 
R.  Briggs,  is  signed  by  Professors  Byerly,  A.  L.  Lowell,  Morgan, 
Woodworth,  Cobb,  Sprague  and  Grandgent,  as  well  as  by  the  pre- 
sent Dean,  B.  S.  Hurlbut,  and  the  ex-Dean,  Professor  Briggs. 
Throughout,  whether  intended  as  such  or  not,  it  is  a  conclusive 
rejoinder  to  President  Eliot's  plan  of  immediate  retrenchment. 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  171 

Were  reliable  data  to  be  had,  it  would  be  interesting 
at  this  point  to  reach  some  conclusion  as  to  the  propor- 
tion the  fees  for  tuition  bear  to  the  whole  present  cost 
of  student  life  at  Harvard.  Unfortunately  on  this  head 
approximations  only  are  possible,  as  it  is,  of  course,  out 
of  any  one's  power  to  say  what  the  average  amount 
spent  by  students  is.  Young  men  have  been  known  to 
go  through  a  university  course  at  Cambridge  on  a  little 
less  than  $400  a  year.  These,  however,  were  extreme 
cases;  and,  after  allowing  for  term-bills,  such  economy 
may  well  involve  privations  in  matters  of  clothing, 
heating  and  food  which  might  entail  a  permanent  im- 
pairment of  health.  It  would  be  safer  to  fix  the  mini- 
mum cost  of  education  at  Harvard  at  $450  to  $500  a 
year. 

At  the  other  extreme  are  those  wealthy  students, 
who,  in  some  cases,  spend,  it  is  said,  several  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  Between  these  two  extremes,  it  would 
probably  not  be  far  out  of  the  way  to  fix  the  average 
present  outgo  of  the  Harvard  student,  whether  in  the 
Academic  Department  or  in  one  of  the  Professional 
Schools,  at  $800  to  $900  per  annum.  The  present  term- 
fee  ($150)  therefore  may,  with  the  average  student,  be 
taken  to  represent  from  15  to  18  per  cent,  of  his  entire 
expenses;  while,  with  the  most  needy,  it  would  repre- 
sent, possibly,  as  much  as  30  per  cent.  This  last  fact 
must  be  borne  in  mind,  and  provision  made  accord- 
ingly. 

It  is  manifestly  unnecessary  to  extend  the  investiga- 
tion into  the  relative  cost  of  education  at  Harvard, 
either  at  present  or  after  the  change  now  proposed,  as 
compared  with  the  cost  of  education  at  other  similar 
institutions,  such  as  the  School  of  Technology  in  Bos- 
ton, Yale,  or  Ann  Arbor.    In  the  matter  of  graduates 


172  THREE  <I>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

and  degrees,  whether  in  the  Academic  Department  or 
in  the  Professional  Schools,  it  is  not  a  question  with 
Harvard  of  quantity  so  much  as  of  quality.  Proposing 
to  give  the  best  education  anywhere  attainable,  it  is 
immaterial  to  the  University  whether  it  graduates  a 
larger  number  of  students  than  are  graduated  else- 
where, or  a  less  number.  Between  universities,  com- 
petition should  be  in  excellence,  not  numbers.  The 
quantitative  aspect  of  the  problem  should  not  even  be 
considered. 

The  effect  of  any  increase  of  the  tuition  fee  may, 
however,  well  be  considered  in  another  aspect.  In  the 
evolution  of  education  in  this  country,  the  position  of 
Harvard  is  becoming  more  and  more  pronounced.  The 
rapid  increase  in  number  of  endowed  institutions  of 
advanced  education  during  the  last  few  years  —  an 
increase  which  shows  no  sign  of  diminution  —  has  led 
to  the  inevitable  result  that  a  university  degree  has  no 
necessary  significance.  It  may  mean  much;  it  may 
mean  little;  it  may  mean  nothing  at  all;  or,  finally, 
it  may  be  an  actual  fraud.  The  degrees  of  certain  in- 
stitutions, however,  are  known,  and  at  once  recognized 
everywhere;  so  to  speak,  they  are,  if  not  legal  tender, 
at  least  current  money.  Among  those  institutions,  it  is 
needless  to  say,  Harvard  holds  a  recognized  place. 
While,  indeed,  the  degrees  of  numerous  other  institu- 
tions very  possibly  mean  as  much  educationally,  they 
have  not  all  the  same  market-place  value  as  that  6f 
Harvard.  It  is,  therefore,  becoming  more  and  more 
the  practice  of  students  at  other,  and  well-nigh  innum- 
erable institutions  throughout  the  country,  to  end  off 
by  a  longer  or  shorter  course  at  Harvard  in  order  to 
receive  what  may  be  called  the  educational  Mint-mark, 
or  Tower-stamp.    The  more  than  probable  result  of  an 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  173 

increased  cost  of  Harvard  education  would  be  to  pro- 
mote this  tendency.  A  larger  and  larger  number  of 
students  would  come  to  the  University,  especially  to 
its  Professional  Schools,  for  shorter  and  shorter  pe- 
riods, within  given  limits,  looking  forward  merely  to 
taking  a  degree  after  the  necessary  examinations  could 
be  passed.  There  is  in  this  nothing  which  Harvard 
University,  or  the  friends  of  Harvard  University,  should 
oppose,  or  which  should  cause  in  it,  or  to  them,  a  feeling 
of  regret;  on  the  contrary,  it  tends  to  put  the  Univer- 
sity in  its  proper  place  in  what  may  not  improperly  be 
described  as  that  educational  hierarchy  of  the  country 
in  plain  process  of  evolution. 

It  is  now  thirty-five  years  since  the  fees  of  the  Har- 
vard academic  course  were  fixed  at  $150  a  year.  Dur- 
ing those  years,  as  the  analysis  presented  in  the  earlier 
part  of  this  paper  shows,  the  cost  of  each  student's  edu- 
cation has  largely  increased,  while  the  purchasing  power 
of  the  monetary  unit  has,  as  is  well  known,  steadily 
decreased.  It  is  not  unsafe  to  say  that,  as  a  matter  of 
difficulty  in  getting  or  of  value  in  spending,  a  dollar  and 
a  half  now  is  not  the  equivalent  of  a  dollar  in  1868.  A 
tuition  fee  of  $225  a  year  would  not,  therefore,  repre- 
sent either  to  the  student  or  the  College  what  the  pre- 
sent fee  of  $150  represented  at  the  time  of  its  adoption. 
As  compared  with  the  average  cost  of  student  life 
at  Cambridge,  it  would  represent  an  increase  of  some 
9  per  cent.,  or,  in  the  case  of  the  more  necessitous, 
15  per  cent. 

Assuming  such  an  increase  to  be  decided  upon,  it 
remains  to  consider  the  policy  which,  in  other  respects, 
should  thereupon  be  adopted;  for  a  measure  neces- 
sarily so  far-reaching  as  an  increase  in  the  tuition  fee 


174  THREE   <l>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

ought  to  be  treated  as  one  feature  only  in  a  more  or  less 
comprehensive  programme. 

Should  the  number  of  students  seeking  admission  to 
the  College  not  be  diminished  by  the  proposed  change, 
the  average  addition  of  $75  a  year  to  the  present  tuition 
fees  would  represent  an  annual  aggregate  income  in- 
crease of  $225,000.  This  sum  would  obviously  far  more 
than  suffice  to  extinguish  the  deficit  under  considera- 
tion, and  relieve  the  more  pressing  needs  of  the  Univer- 
sity for  an  indefinite  time  to  come.  But  so  considerable 
an  addition  to  the  revenue  of  the  University,  derived 
from  such  a  source,  raises  other  questions. 

Included  in  the  body  of  reports  accompanying  that 
of  the  President,  is  one  of  the  present  Dean  of  the  Col- 
lege. The  following  passage  (p.  109)  in  this  Report  of 
Mr.  Hurlbut  relates  to  the  question' of  aid  given  to  the 
more  necessitous  students,  towards  meeting  the  cost 
of  their  education: 

"The  increase  in  the  number  of  scholars  in  the  first 
group  is  gratifying,  but  points  at  the  same  time  to  a 
condition  that  the  Committee  on  Scholarships  has  for 
a  long  time  deplored,  the  lack  of  an  adequate  number 
of  scholarships  with  stipend.  .  .  .  Every  graduate  of  the 
College  knows  how  mistaken  is  the  idea,  so  commonly 
held  by  those  who  trust  only  to  report,  that  the  College 
has  an  abundance  of  money;  but  many  graduates, 
especially  those  of  the  classes  before  the  '90's,  fall  with 
the  public  into  the  error  of  thinking  that  the  College 
has  adequate  resources  to  help  all  deserving  students 
who  must  wholly  or  in  part  pay  their  way.  A  merely 
superficial  examination  of  the  facts  will  convince  the 
investigator  that  this  opinion  is  mistaken,  but  how 
greatly  mistaken  only  those  who  are  brought  closely 
into  contact  with  these  men  fully  understand.    Before 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  175 

the  great  increase  in  the  number  of  students,  in  the 
early  '80's,  there  was  probably  a  sufficient  number  of 
scholarships  for  the  really  deserving  men;  but  in  the 
years  since  that  time  the  growth  in  the  funds  for  as- 
sisting students  has  not  kept  pace  with  the  growth  in 
numbers." 

Here,  then,  is  a  crying  present  need  of  the  University. 
Harvard  is  to-day  educating  out  of  its  endowment  a 
large  and  constantly  increasing  number  of  young  men 
both  able  and  ready  to  reimburse  it  the  entire  cost  of 
their  education;  at  the  same  time  it  cannot  adequately 
assist  those  in  great  need  of  assistance,  or  even  relieve 
them  of  their  tuition  fees.  It  is  a  condition  of  affairs 
which  obviously  calls  for  comprehensive  remedial  treat- 
ment. Both  classes  should  be  reached;  the  one  should 
be  made  to  pay,  while  the  other  should  be  relieved 
from  paying. 

This  double  result  could,  it  is  submitted,  be  in  great 
measure  secured  through  the  proposed  increase  of  the 
tuition  fee.  The  half  ($115,000)  of  the  increased  in- 
come ($225,000)  derived  from  this  source  might  be 
divided  into  scholarships,  respectively,  of  X,  Y  and  Z 
dollars  per  annum,  —  say,  perhaps,  500  scholarships 
in  all,  representing,  on  an  average,  $225  per  annum 
each,  —  and  these  be  assigned  to  those  applicants  for 
aid  who  should  have  established  a  grade,  which  may 
be  designated,  respectively,  as  A,  B  and  C,  in  the 
studies  to  which  they  have  devoted  themselves.  Or, 
if  objection  be  made  to  this  direct  reimbursement  from 
a  fund  thus  created,  the  proposition  could  be  put  in  a 
slightly  different  form.  Such  an  addition  ($225,000)  to 
the  free  income  of  the  University  would  release  so  large 
an  amount,  now  otherwise  utilized,  that  a  sum  of  not 
less  than  $115,000  could  be  appropriated  to  scholar- 


176  THREE   3>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

ships  from  the  income  of  the  endowment.  This,  how- 
ever, is  but  an  evasion.  No  student,  not  even  the 
wealthiest,  would  under  the  proposed  arrangement  pay 
the  College  what  his  education  will  cost.  He  may  now 
pay  50  per  cent,  of  that  cost;  he  might  then  pay  two 
thirds  of  it.  To  the  extent  of  that  unpaid  third  he  will, 
in  common  with  all  his  fellows,  be  a  charity  student. 
The  proposition  is,  therefore,  one  of  reimbursement  to 
the  more  needy.  As  such  it  had  best  be  treated;  and 
treated  directly.  There  is  no  call  for  subterfuge.  No 
student  pays,  or  is  likely  to  pay,  for  what  he  gets.  All 
are  recipients  of  aid ;  and  the  only  question  is  as  to  the 
equitable  disbursement  of  an  educational  trust  from 
which  each  receives  something.  But,  must  they  neces- 
sarily receive  equally?  Is  not  such  a  proposition  po- 
litical democracy  run  mad  educationally? 

It  remains  to  examine  the  practical  working  of  this 
scheme,  if  adopted.  In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  as- 
sumed that  the  proposed  increase  in  the  tuition  fee 
would  not  materially  diminish  the  number  of  students. 
As  already  pointed  out,  $225  a  year  is  in  common  ac- 
ceptance not  a  more  formidable  amount  than  $150  was 
thirty-five  years  ago;  and  the  increase  to  that  sum 
then  seems  to  have  produced  no  appreciable,  and  cer- 
tainly no  permanent,  effect  on  the  University  roster. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  at  that  time  Harvard  entered 
upon  a  period  of  great  and  continuous  growth.  The 
fact  is  the  debate  here  strikes  a  very  momentous  con- 
sideration; one  not  to  be  lost  sight  of  in  developing 
a  broad  university  policy.  The  problem  before  Har- 
vard is  to  adjust  itself  to  existing  conditions.  The 
constitution  and  peculiarities  of  a  community  must  be 
understood  and  allowed  for.  Now,  it  is  a  characteristic 
of  the  American  people  that  they  want  the  best.    At 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  177 

first  they  may  hesitate  before  an  increase  of  expense; 
but  experience  shows  that,  whenever  an  improvement 
is  offered  looking  to  a  higher  and  better  standard,  the 
community  at  large  is,  in  the  case  of  the  United  States, 
eager  ultimately  to  participate  in  it  Speedily  educating 
itself  to  a  new  standard,  it  is  not  long  deterred  from 
participation  by  the  cost  thereof,  if  within  reasonable 
limits.  Stated  broadly,  therefore,  the  mere  fact  that 
Harvard  College,  and  University,  is  recognized  as  the 
most  expensive  —  provided  always  it  is  also  the  best  — 
institution  of  education  in  the  country,  might,  in  the 
long  run,  tend  quite  as  much  to  increase  as  to  diminish 
the  body  of  those  seeking  admission.  Assuming  this 
result,  Harvard  would,  then,  practically  take  this  posi- 
tion: It  would  announce  to  the  American  community 
at  large,  — "We  propose  to  give  the  best,  sparing  no 
expense.  The  best  is  costly;  our  endowment,  limited 
Those,  therefore,  who  desire  to  enjoy  the  advantages 
we  offer  must  be  prepared  to  pay  a  reasonable  propor- 
tion of  the  cost  thereof.  On  the  other  hand,  Harvard's 
policy  is  such  that  no  youth  of  good  ability,  disposed 
to  apply  himself  closely,  and  to  take  advantage  of  his 
opportunities,  need  hesitate  to  come  to  it.  Provided 
he  is  endowed  with  a  fair  degree  of  intelligence,  and 
applies  himself  faithfully,  he  can,  so  far  as  tuition  is 
concerned,  pay  his  own  way  almost  from  the  outset. 
All  depends  on  himself.  The  University,  so  far  as  it  can 
avoid  so  doing,  does  not  propose  to  expend  its  means  on 
the  education  of  those  who,  either  from  indolence  or 
from  deficient  capacity,  are  not  calculated  to  derive  full 
advantage  from  the  opportunities  afforded.  The  Har- 
vard courses  are  not  so  difficult  that  any  man  of  aver- 
age abilities  cannot,  with  fair  application,  easily  obtain 
a  degree.   For  the  wealthy,  or  well-to-do,  therefore,  the 


178  THREE   <l>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

situation  presents  no  difficulties;  for  those  less  well 
provided,  but  who,  with  good  natural  faculties,  show 
steady  application,  the  cost  of  tuition  is  within  reach. 
Ample  opportunities  for  education  are  afforded  by  less 
expensive  institutions  for  such  as  have  neither  the 
means  to  pay  for  tuition,  nor  the  faculties  which  give 
reasonable  assurance  of  benefit  from  the  opportunity 
offered.  The  resources  of  Harvard  University  can  be 
used  to  better  advantage  than  by  sharing  them  equally, 
promiscuously  and  indiscriminately  among  all,  irre- 
spective of  ability,  industry  or  means.  They  should  be 
economized." 

It  has  just  been  said  that  the  problem  now  presented 
to  Harvard  is  that  of  adjustment  to  existing  conditions. 
In  this  connection  Harvard  may  well  take  to  itself,  and 
bear  carefully  in  mind,  this  recent  utterance  of  the 
president  of  a  sister  university:  "In  order  to  become 
great  —  indeed  in  order  to  exist  at  all  —  a  university 
must  represent  the  national  life  and  minister  to  it. 
When  the  university  of  any  country  ceases  to  be  in  close 
touch  with  the  social  life  and  institutions  of  the  people, 
and  fails  to  yield  to  the  efforts  of  those  who  would  re- 
adjust it,  its  days  of  influence  are  numbered."  Turning 
to  the  consideration  of  the  present  problem  with  these 
weighty  words  in  mind,  the  first  essential  fact  to  be 
recognized  is  that  the  United  States  is  now  the  richest 
country  in  the  world,  as  well  as  the  most  populous  of 
those  educationally  advanced.  Both  in  wealth  and 
numbers,  moreover,  it  is  growing  at  a  rate  for  which 
history  offers  no  precedent,  nor  the  present  a  parallel. 
The  rich  and  the  thoroughly  well-to-do  are  increasing 
proportionately.  The  territorial  area  from  which  Har- 
vard should  draw  has  practically  no  limits.  That  under 
these  circumstances  its  resources  will  in  future  be  taxed 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  179 

to  the  utmost,  admits  of  no  question.  Its  whole  problem 
is  to  adapt  itself  to  its  environment,  —  the  environment, 
be  it  remembered,  of  the  twentieth,  and  not  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Inequality,  and  an  inequality  ever 
increasing  in  degree,  of  worldly  possessions  is  one  of  the 
facts  of  that  environment;  and,  recognizing  this  fact, 
the  effort  of  Harvard  should  be  to  equalize  conditions 
in  so  far  as  it  is  in  her  power  so  to  do. 

Finally,  the  system  proposed  is  merely  another  appli- 
cation of  the  great  natural  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  It  may  be  assumed  that,  to  a  considerable,  and 
ever  increasing,  portion  of  those  seeking  to  obtain  their 
education  at  Harvard  College,  the  payment  of  $150 
or  of  $225  per  annum,  for  tuition,  is  immaterial.  To 
another,  perhaps  a  larger,  portion,  it  is  most  material. 
Under  the  system  proposed,  one  half  of  the  total  addi- 
tional amount  paid  for  tuition  would  be  refunded  to  the 
whole  body  of  students,  and  applied  to  defraying  the 
cost,  in  whole  or  in  part,  of  the  education  of  such  as, 
by  their  work,  should  demonstrate  that,  under  any 
reasonable  doctrine  of  chances,  the  amount  expended 
upon  them  would  be  expended  most  profitably  both 
for  themselves  and  for  the  community.  The  fittest 
would,  under  this  system,  naturally  survive. 

To  summarize:  Through  the  adoption  of  such  a 
policy  as  that  outlined  three  excellent  results  would  be 
accomplished.  First,  the  College  deficit  would  be  am- 
ply provided  for;  secondly,  Harvard  would  not,  as  now, 
be  brought  into  direct  and  continued  competition  with 
other,  and  less  elaborate,  institutions  for  the  education 
of  a  vast  number  of  young  men  who  could  just  as  well, 
or  even  better,  be  educated  elsewhere;  and,  thirdly, 
a  sufficient  additional  fund  would  be  forthcoming  to 
aid  that  large  and  most  deserving  class  of  students, 


180  THREE  <t>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

for  whom,  confessedly,  there  is  now  no  adequate  pro- 
vision. Each  and  all  of  these  things,  it  is  submitted,  are 
in  themselves  most  desirable. 

Two  objections  have  been  advanced  to  the  proposed 
policy:  First,  it  has  been  urged  that  many  of  the  stu- 
dents who  are  unable  to  distinguish  themselves  in  their 
courses  sufficiently  to  obtain  a  scholarship,  prove, 
notwithstanding,  in  after-life,  those  upon  whom  the 
education  has  been  most  profitably  bestowed.  This 
argument  has,  in  fact,  been  pushed  to  its  extreme  limit. 
The  proposed  system  of  scholarships  would  more  than 
provide  for  every  case  of  hardship  in  the  first  half  of 
each  class;  but  it  is  then  urged  the  real  "bone  and 
sinew  "  of  our  college  life  is  found  not  in  the  first  half 
of  each  class,  but  in  its  third  quarter,  or,  perchance, 
nearer  to  the  foot  thereof.  In  fact,  poor  scholarship, 
if  combined  with  lack  of  means,  has  figured,  somewhat 
sentimentally  perhaps,  as  indicative  of  our  most  pre- 
cious educational  material.  Sympathy  has  at  times 
even  seemed  to  obscure  discernment;  for,  while  the 
dull,  lumpish  and  mentally  inert,  provided  only  they 
are  also  poor,  have  been  almost  passionately  adhered  to 
as  the  possible  flowers  of  the  flock,  others  of  the  same 
general  type,  but  more  fortunate  in  their  worldly  be- 
longings, have  been  roundly  denounced,  and  charac- 
terized as  college  barnacles.  All  this  may  be  so.  Schol- 
arship may,  as  asserted,  be  no  test  of  capacity;  and 
high  college  rank  may  serve  only  to  excite  doubt  of 
subsequent  success  in  life.  If,  however,  such  is  indeed 
the  case,  experience  is  sadly  at  fault.  But,  reverting 
to  experience  for  light  and  guidance,  the  answer  to  the 
first  objection  is  obvious.  No  process  of  elimination 
is  perfect;  none,  indeed,  is  otherwise  than  rough  and 
general;  and,  in  nature,  most  so  of  all.    While,  then, 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  181 

there  are  exceptions  to  this  as  to  all  rules,  it  may  fairly 
be  assumed  that  the  test  of  application,  natural  ability, 
and  industry,  as  developed  in  university  standing, 
is  approximately  correct  as  a  basis  of  guidance  for  an 
estimate  of  the  individual.  In  a  general  way,  it  may  be 
anticipated  that  the  young  man  who  stands  well  in  his 
studies  in  the  college  will  stand  high  in  subsequent 
life.  While,  therefore,  it  is  impossible  to  adopt  any  sys- 
tem of  elimination  which  will  work  no  occasional  hard- 
ship, or  set  all  criticism  at  defiance,  the  system  proposed 
—  that  of  judging  by  established  tests  —  will,  it  may 
not  unsafely  be  asserted,  produce,  as  a  general  rule, 
results  as  little  unsatisfactory  as  can  be  reached  through 
any  test  possible  to  devise. 

In  the  second  place,  it  has  been  argued  that  the 
American  student  is  unwilling  to  support  himself,  or 
be  supported,  through  scholarships;  such  aids  partake 
of  the  nature  of  charity,  and  his  self-respect  revolts 
thereat.  It  may  well  be  questioned  whether  this  argu- 
ment is  sustained  in  practical  experience.  The  extract 
quoted  from  Dean  Hurlbut's  report  looks  certainly 
in  the  opposite  direction.  The  highest  college  author- 
ity is  there  on  immediate  record  as  recommending  an 
increase  in  scholarships.  He  refers  to  it,  indeed,  as  one 
of  the  more  pressing  present  needs  of  the  University. 
The  obvious  implication  is  that  scholarships  are  not 
unpopular  to  any  excessive  extent,  and  that  the  demand 
for  them  even  now  largely  exceeds  the  supply.  Certainly 
it  is  not  easy  to  see  why  any  man  should  consider  him- 
self degraded  by  recouping  for  himself  or  his  family 
the  expense  of  his  education  through  high  scholarship. 
But  that  such  supersensitiveness  exists  at  all  taxes  the 
credibility  of  almost  every  graduate  of  even  moderate 
means.   It  is  directly  opposed  to  the  facts  of  his  expe- 


182  THREE  <£  B   K  ADDRESSES 

rience.  The  applications  for  aid  to  get  a  university 
education  are  both  incessant  and  pressing,  nor  is  hesi- 
tation in  the  acceptance  of  the  same  conspicuous.  The 
exception  is  the  case  where  gratitude  is  subsequently 
evinced,  or  effort  at  repayment  made.  But  if,  contrary 
to  all  individual  experience,  such  a  hesitation  as  to  the 
acceptance  of  a  fairly  won  money  recognition  does  pre- 
vail to  any  large  extent,  those  subject  to  it  had  better, 
with  the  least  delay  possible,  be  educated  into  a  sounder 
condition,  mental  and  moral.  The  winning  of  a  schol- 
arship should  be  looked  upon  as  the  winning  of  a 
decoration,  and  as  a  source  of  pride.  The  suggestion 
that  anywhere  or  by  anybody  it  is  held  a  badge  of 
mendicancy  is  not  worthy  of  consideration.  If  such  is 
the  case  now,  it  cannot  too  soon  cease  to  be  the  case. 
The  discussion  is  as  yet  in  its  earlier  stage.  Of  neces- 
sity it  involves  many  points  worthy  of  careful  con- 
sideration. Harvard  may,  it  is  apprehensively  argued, 
by  making  the  well-to-do  pay,  and  throwing  wide  its 
portals  to  the  more  capable  poor,  acquire  evil  repu- 
tation as  being  a  "Rich  Man's  College;  "  or  it  may, 
by  not  bestowing  its  endowment  impartially  on  the  less 
capable,  as  well  as  the  more  capable,  of  the  poor,  be 
drifting  away  from  "  Democracy."  These,  and  other 
similar  considerations  should,  and  doubtless  will,  be 
thoroughly  thrashed  out  by  those  upon  whom  a  final 
decision  devolves.  Many  points  of  detail  will  also  have 
to  be  considered.  For  instance,  under  such  a  system 
as  herein  suggested,  it  is  obvious  that  some  provision 
must  be  made  to  meet  the  requirements  of  students  dur- 
ing the  year  of  competitive  test.  A  scholarship  of  the 
sort  proposed  can,  of  course,  only  be  gained  as  the  re- 
sult of  work  done;  and  cases  of  privation  and  hardship 
must  necessarily  occur  during  that  preliminary  period. 


THE  HARVARD  TUITION  FEE  183 

Such  could,  however,  be  met  in  various  ways,  once  the 
necessary  funds  are  provided.  The  tuition  fees  could 
be  omitted  on  evidence  of  high  scholarship;  regulated 
advances  could,  on  application,  be  made;  or,  finally, 
conditional  scholarships  might  be  awarded.  Other 
provisions  would  have  to  be  made  as  to  the  bestowal 
of  scholarships  when  earned,  and  alternatives  to  a 
money  recognition  arranged.  These,  however,  are  all 
matters  not  now  to  be  discussed. 


THE  FIFTIETH  YEAR 

1856-1906 


THE   FIFTIETH   YEAR1 

1856-1906 

As  I  rise  to  respond  for  the  Class  of  1856,  a  vague  recol- 
lection comes  over  me  of  a  conversation  —  one  of 
many  —  had,  quite  a  number  of  years  ago,  with  Presi- 
dent Eliot,  in  which  we  discussed  commencement  din- 
ner oratory.  Possibly  we  were  arranging  an  after-dinner 
programme.  However  that  may  have  been,  my  recol- 
lection is  that  I  referred  to  representatives  of  the  two 
classes,  that  which  had  graduated  twenty-five  years 
before  and  that  which  graduated  fifty  years  before,  as 
being  always  called  upon.  As  to  the  former,  the  class 
of  twenty-five  years  before,  the  President  —  we  were 
then  both  of  us  considerably  younger  than  we  now  are 
—  readily  assented  ;  but  to  the  latter,  or  half -century 
representative,  his  denial  was  distinct.  That  he  said 
had,  it  was  true,  been  tried;  but,  by  general  consent, 
it  was  abandoned,  —  the  utterances  in  response  having 
been  found  to  be  of  a  nature,  if  I  remember  his  lan- 
guage correctly,  "altogether  too  lugubrious. "  Until 
within  the  last  few  days  I  had  hoped  and  believed 
this  salutary  understanding  still  obtained;  but,  about 
a  week  ago,  I  was  notified  by  representatives  of  my 
class  that  I  was  conscripted  for  this  occasion.  In  re- 
sponse, I  am  here,  and  now  on  my  feet. 

Not  only,  however,  does  President  Eliot's  observa- 
tion recur  to  me,  but  also  a  familiar  quotation  from 

1  Speech  at  the  Harvard  Alumni  Dinner,  Commencement  Day, 
Wednesday,  June  27,  1906. 


188  THREE   4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

Bums,  which  I  will  not  repeat,  as  to  the  desirability  at 
times  of  seeing  ourselves  as  we  are  seen  by  others.  It 
is  now  the  turn  of  those  remaining  of  the  Class  of  1856 
to  figure  as  "venerable  men;"  and  we  may  as  well 
realize  that  we  look,  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  graduate 
to-day,  very  much  as  the  members  of  the  Class  of  1806 
appeared  in  our  eyes  when,  in  that  old  wooden  church 
building  still  standing  before  the  college  gate  and  op- 
posite Harvard  Hall,  we  walked  up  the  aisle  that  July 
day  to  receive  our  diplomas  from  President  James 
Walker.  I  must  confess  it  does  carry  us  a  good  way 
back.  President  Walker  himself  then  seemed  to  me 
a  pretty  old  gentleman;  and  he  resigned,  because  of 
growing  infirmities,  four  years  later :  but,  when  I  took 
my  degree  from  his  hands,  his  class  lacked  eight  years 
yet  of  the  fiftieth  milepost.  Turning  back  in  the  pages 
of  the  Quinquennial  to  the  Class  of  1806,  I  find  that, 
graduating  42  in  number,  16  of  the  42  were  still  alive 
in  1856;  the  names  of  those  16  I  then  scanned  curiously 
for  that  of  some  one  I  remembered.  One  such  I  found, 
and  my  spirits  rose  at  once.  It  was  Jacob  Bigelow; 
and  if  we  of  '56  only  look  and  feel  and  think,  and 
appear  to  others,  as  Jacob  Bigelow  looked  and  felt  and 
thought  and  appeared  as  he  passed  the  fiftieth  mile- 
stone, we  have  no  ground  for  either  lugubriousness  or 
discontent.  Strong  of  body,  active  in  mind,  clear  of 
vision,  keen  of  wit,  Jacob  Bigelow  was  in  1856  still 
a  man  in  middle  life.  Not  for  nearly  another  quarter 
of  a  century  did  the  asterisk  appear  against  his 
name;  then,  with  one  exception,  the  last  survivor  of 
his  class.1 

1  Bora  in  Sudbury,  Massachusetts,  February  27,  1787,  Jacob 
Bigelow,  having  been  graduated  at  Harvard  in  1806,  began  the 
practice  of  medicine  in  Boston  in  1810,  and  there  died  January  10, 


THE  FIFTIETH  YEAR:    1856-1906  189 

Again,  I  frankly  confess  I  would  very  much  like  to 
think  that  fifty  years  hence  some  member  of  the  class 
which  took  its  degrees  to-day  could  say  at  the  Com- 
mencement dinner  of  1956  what  I  can  now  say  of  Jacob 
Bigelow.  I  knew  him  well;  and  I  can  soberly  assert  he 
was  one  of  the  very  few  really  great  men  it  has  been 
given  me  to  know  at  all.  A  keen  observer,  of  robust 
mind  and  shrewd  native  wit,  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow  was  a 
genuine  product  of  New  England,  —  he  flavored  of  the 
soil,  —  he  was  as  much  to  our  Massachusetts  manner 
born  as  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  in  mental  makeup  he 
to  my  mind  strongly  resembled.  Except  among  mem- 
bers of  his  own  profession  the  name  of  Jacob  Bigelow 
is  now  scarcely  known;  and  yet  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
assert  that  to  him  can  be  paid  the  greatest  tribute  pos- 
sible to  be  paid  to  any  man,  —  the  tribute  that,  through 
him  and  by  him,  the  calling  to  which  he  devoted  his 
life  was  appreciably  elevated  and  improved.  The  orig- 
inator of  distinctly  new  theories  of  disease  and  its 
treatment,  he  left  the  profession  of  medicine  other 
and  better  and  wiser  than  he  found  it. 

So  much  for  the  class  of  fifty  years  syne,  when  that 
to  which  I  belonged  received  its  degrees.  And  my  last 
remark  in  connection  with  Jacob  Bigelow  leads  at  once 

1879.  A  family  physician,  he  was  also  a  scholar  and  observer,  with 
strong  natural  literary  and  artistic  aptitudes.  A  professor  of  the 
Harvard  Medical  School  for  forty  years,  he  in  1811  delivered  the 
poem  before  the  Harvard  Chapter  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  fraternity. 
A  recognized  authority  in  botany,  he  was  the  founder  of  the  Mt.  Au- 
burn Cemetery.  His  papers  on  what  he  termed  the  expectant  treat- 
ment in  medicine,  and  the  self -limitation  of  diseases  may  fairly  be 
said  to  have  marked  an  epoch  in  medical  practice;  and  he  was  a 
pioneer  in  advocating  the  establishment  of  technical  schools.  His 
professional  eminence  and  intellectual  virility  were  fully  recognized 
during  his  life;  and  the  volume  of  his  miscellaneous  papers  entitled 
Modern  Inquiries,  published  in  1867,  has  permanent  literary  value. 


190  THREE  4>  B   K  ADDRESSES 

to  my  real  topic.  Of  those  who  graduated  a  century  ago 
four  in  each  ten  were  alive  after  fifty  years;  foretold  on 
the  same  basis,  of  those  who  graduate  to-day  a  hundred 
will  be  in  position  to  take  part  in  the  commencement 
exercises  of  1956.  It  is  to  them  I  propose  to  address 
myself,  speaking  as  Jacob  Bigelow  might  have  spoken 
to  us.  In  1806  Harvard  was  Harvard  College  still.  The 
University  was  in  its  earliest  infancy.  The  Divinity 
School  did  not  exist;  the  Law  School  had  not  yet  come 
into  being;  the  Scientific  School  was  a  dream;  the 
Medical  School,  less  than  twenty  years  old,  numbered 
but  a  dozen  students.  All  told,  of  students  the  catalogue 
boasted  some  160  names  only.  During  the  next  half- 
century  that  number  had  increased  to  670;  the  Uni- 
versity endowment  meanwhile  had  swollen  from  a  few 
hundreds  of  thousands  to  nearly  two  million  dollars,  — 
I  deal  in  round  numbers  only,  and  cannot  stop  to  enter 
into  detail.  Standing  then  on  the  threshold  of  the 
second  half  of  the  century  which  began  in  1806, 1  can 
well  imagine  Jacob  Bigelow  forecasting  the  growth 
and  needs  of  Harvard ;  but,  however  large  his  forecast, 
I  cannot  imagine  it  would  have  equalled  the  reality. 
Since  1856  the  schools  have  multiplied;  the  670  stu- 
dents have  become  4000 ;  the  endowment  has  increased 
from  two  millions  to  twenty  millions.  And  yet,  when  he 
contemplated  these  results  so  far  exceeding  all  possible 
expectation,  what  would  not  have  been  the  surprise  of 
Jacob  Bigelow  on  learning  that,  in  spite  of  this  increase, 
the  University  was  poorer  than  ever  before,  —  its  needs 
had  never  been  so  great!   Such  is  the  fact. 

There  is,  I  admit,  a  certain  fitness  in  my  to-day  repre- 
senting the  class  of  fifty  years  ago;  for  it  so  chances 
that  during  close  upon  half  of  the  period,  —  to  be  exact 
since  1882,  —  I  have  also  been  a  member  of  the  Board 


THE  FIFTIETH  YEAR:    1856-1906  191 

of  Overseers,  the  only  one  of  my  class  who  has  ever 
served  in  that  capacity.  As  an  Overseer  also,  I  have 
long  been  chairman  of  that  committee  of  the  Board 
whose  duty  it  is  to  receive,  consider,  and  digest  the  re- 
ports of  the  many  visiting  committees.  Consisting,  as 
those  reports  do,  of  one  long  and  somewhat  varied,  and 
yet  withal  extremely  monotonous,  cry  for  aid  and  ad- 
ditional means  to  do  the  work  in  hand  to  be  done,  the 
study  of  them  has  led  me  from  time  to  time  to  make 
rough  estimates  of  the  additional  endowment  the  Uni- 
versity now  needs  to  enable  it  to  meet  its  requirements. 
The  result  has  been  somewhat  startling;  perhaps  I 
shall  be  deemed  indiscreet  for  publishing  it.  So  doing 
might,  some  will  argue,  discourage  giving.  I  do  not 
think  so;  at  any  rate  I  propose  to  blurt  the  thing  out. 
Best  face  facts;  I  have  never  found  concealments  ad- 
vantageous. In  plain  language  then,  the  University  to- 
day wants  twenty  million  dollars.  It  stands  in  pressing 
need  of  twice  its  present  endowment.  In  other  words, 
to  enlarge  and  renew  its  plant,  to  pay  a  fair  living  wage 
and  adequately  meet  the  increased  and  differentiated 
demands  made  upon  it,  the  sum  I  have  named  in  fresh 
money  would  not,  if  judiciously  and  carefully  expended 
during  the  next  ten  years,  more  than  suffice.  The 
amount  named  seems  considerable,  —  there  are  those 
who  may  regard  it  as  staggering.  Perhaps  it  is;  and 
yet,  during  those  same  next  ten  years,  this  country  will 
expend  for  the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal  seven- 
fold that  sum,  and  on  its  war-budget  some  hundred 
and  fifty  times  as  much,  —  say  three  thousand  million 
dollars.  In  view  of  such  an  outgo  what  Harvard  needs 
is,  I  submit,  a  mere  beggarly  pittance. 

The  Class  of  1856  thus  tells  the  Class  of  1906  what 
the  University  calls  for.    Let  to-day's  graduates  give 


192  THREE   <I>  B  K  ADDRESSES 

heed.  What  it  calls  for,  what  it  will  call  for  all  through 
the  coming  fifty  years,  is  a  twentieth-century  John  Har- 
vard. And,  largely  representative  of  money-bags,  the 
John  Harvard  of  the  twentieth  century  must  be  a  man 
quite  different  from  the  John  Harvard  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  More  material,  perhaps,  he  will  be  not  less 
large-minded.  Quite  as  true,  more  far-seeing,  he  is 
greatly  to  be  hoped  for. 

And  now  let  me  close  with  a  confession,  —  not  with- 
out interest;  and,  perhaps,  to  be  pondered  well  by 
some  graduate  of  to-day  holding  the  position  towards 
me  which  I  held  towards  Jacob  Bigelow.  I  have  said 
of  Jacob  Bigelow  that  in  life  he  accomplished  the  great- 
est feat  given  any  man  to  accomplish,  in  that  he  left  his 
chosen  calling  other  and  better  than  he  found  it,  — 
elevated  through  him.  So  now,  looking  back  over  these 
fifty  years,  —  its  victories  and  its  defeats,  its  accom- 
plishments and  its  failures  to  accomplish,  I  have  of  late 
often  thought  how  I  would  have  had  it  go  could  I  have 
shaped  events  in  my  own  case  so  as  now  to  please  me 
most.  As  the  shadows  grow  long,  the  forms  things  as- 
sume are  very  different  from  those  once  imagined.  The 
dreams  of  ambition  are  transformed.  It  so  chances  I 
have  had  to  do  with  varied  callings;  but  now,  looking 
back,  I  find  I  would  not  have  greatly  cared  for  supreme 
professional  success,  to  have  been  a  great  physician,  or 
divine,  or  judge.  I  served  in  the  army  once;  but  mili- 
tary rank  and  fame  now  seem  to  me  a  little  empty.  As 
to  politics,  it  is  a  game;  art,  science,  literature,  —  we 
know  how  fashions  change!  None  of  the  prizes  to  be 
won  in  those  fields  now  tempt  me  greatly;  nor  do  I  feel 
much  regret  at  my  failure  to  win  them.  What  I  now 
find  I  would  really  have  liked  is  something  quite  dif- 
ferent. I  would  like  to  have  accumulated  —  and  ample 


THE  FIFriETH  YEAR:    1856-1906  193 

and  frequent  opportunity  for  so  doing  was  offered  me 
—  one  of  those  vast  fortunes  of  the  present  day  rising 
up  into  the  tens  and  scores  of  millions,  —  what  is  vul- 
garly known  as  "money  to  burn."  But  I  do  not  want 
it  for  myself ;  for  my  personal  needs  I  have  all  I  crave, 
and  for  my  children  I  know,  without  being  reminded  of 
the  fact,  that  excessive  wealth  is  a  curse.  What  I  would 
now  like  the  surplus  tens  of  millions  for  would  be  to 
give  them  to  Harvard.  Could  I  then  at  this  moment  — 
and  I  say  it  reflectively  —  select  for  myself  the  result 
of  the  life  I  have  lived  which  I  would  most  desire,  it 
would  be  to  find  myself  in  position  to  use  my  remaining 
years  in  perfecting,  and  developing  to  an  equality  with 
all  modern  requirements  the  institution  John  Harvard 
founded,  —  I  would  like  to  be  the  nineteenth-century 
John  Harvard,  —  the  John  Harvard-of-the-Money- 
Bags,  if  you  will.  I  would  rather  be  that  than  be  His- 
torian or  General  or  President. 

So,  as  the  Jacob  Bigelow  of  the  Class  of  1806  died 
leaving  his  profession,  through  his  individual  contri- 
bution to  it,  other  and  better  than  it  was,  could  the 
wish  of  my  heart  now  be  gratified  it  would  be  that  I 
might  chant  my  own  nunc  dimittis,  feeling  that  through 
me  and  by  me,  though  in  the  name  of  the  Class  of  1856, 
the  University  had  been  amply  endowed  to  go  on  and 
develop  that  great  work  towards  man's  elevation,  in 
comparison  with  which  inter-oceanic  canals  and  the 
outcome  of  war-budgets  are  mere  dross  and  incidents. 

Perhaps  some  member  of  the  Class  of  1906  may 
profit  by  this  confession  of  one  who  to-day  speaks  for 
the  classes  of  1806  and  of  1856. 


INDEX 


Academy,  equalizing  influence, 
111. 

Adams,  C.  F.,  Sr.,  result  of  study 
of  Greek  to,  33;  advantage  of 
modern  languages  to,  33,  34. 

Adams,  C.  F.,  Jr.,  result  of  study 
of  classics  to,  10,  17,  34,  35; 
and  of  lack  of  modern  lan- 
guages, 36;  identity  with 
Massachusetts,  85;  Harvard 
Overseer,  103,  190;  mistakes 
in  college  training,  120-122, 
124,  131  ;  honorary  degree, 
152. 

Adams,  John,  result  of  study  of 
Greek  to,  28-32;  study  of 
French,  29;  precepts  for 
Adams  Academy,  29. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  result  of  study  of 
Greek  to,  32;  advantage  of 
modern  languages  to,  32;  and 
State  sovereignty,  85;  personal 
effect  of  his  views,  86. 

Adams  Academy,  John  Adams's 
educational  theory  for,  29. 

Administration,  Harvard  ex- 
penses (1868,  1903),  163;  in- 
crease considered,  164. 

Advisers  and  assistants,  system 
of  student,  considered,  110, 
136-139,  143,  146;  proposed 
reduction  in  number  at  Har- 
vard, 161,  169. 

Appomattox,  importance  of  meet- 
ing of  Lee  and  Grant,  87-90. 

Arlington,  attempt  to  restore  to 
Lee  family,  54. 

Assistants.    See  Advisers. 

Athletic  dispensation  in  college 
training,  128,  140,  141. 

Bigelow,  Jacob,  at  his  class's 
semi-centennial,   188;    career, 


188  n  ;  character  and  achieve- 
ment, 189. 

Bismarck,  Otto  von,  achievement, 
155. 

Brown,  John,  ethics  of  his  career, 
65. 

Burkheim,  Emile,  on  present 
college  ideals,  140  n. 

Calhoun,  J.  C,  abstractionist, 
67. 

Cant  and  national  glorification, 
57-60. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  on  hero  wor- 
ship, 51;  contempt  for  present 
age  refuted,  153-157. 

Cavour,  Conte  di,  achievement, 
155. 

Chamberlain,  D.  H.,  as  Governor 
of  South  Carolina,  66;  on 
typical  Southron,  66. 

Civil  War,  predicted  revision  of 
judgments  concerning,  53,  95- 
97;  English  attitude  during, 
59;  European  attitude,  88; 
clemency  at  close,  90;  glory, 
154.    See  also  Lee,  Secession. 

Classics.    See  Greek,  Latin. 

Cobden,  Richard,  on  cant,  58; 
on  sympathy  for  other  people's 
rebels,  58. 

College  education,  fails  to  train 
for  life's  work,  8,  12,  16,  18, 
132;  character  of  events  since 
1856,  8-10;  training  given  for 
this  life,  10,  17,  36;  necessity 
of  fundamentals  and  severe 
training  in  them,  11;  super- 
fluity of  training  in  classic 
fundamentals,  11,  12;  neglect 
of  English,  12;  resulting  gen- 
eral superfluity,  13;  true  aim, 
14, 129, 145;  thorough  training 


196 


INDEX 


in  classics  as  best  means  to 
broaden  culture,  14-16,  22; 
133;  but  not  only  one,  15; 
position  of  modern  languages, 
19-21;  insistence  on  entrance 
Greek  considered,  22-24;  mod- 
ernists' proposed  alternative 
in  entrance  requirements,  39- 
41;  effect  of  this,  41;  consider- 
ation of  languages  in  foreign 
colleges  not  germane,  42; 
effect  of  proposal  on  classic 
studies,  43;  notable  changes 
in  last  fifty  years,  104;  in- 
crease in  numbers,  104;  in- 
crease undesirable,  105;  sys- 
tem outgrown,  105,  132,  136; 
lack  of  individual  direction  of 
students,  106-111,  124,  130; 
system  of  advisers  and  assist- 
ants considered,  110,  136-139, 
143;  result  to  students  of  lack 
of  direction,  111;  small  col- 
leges not  a  desirable  alterna- 
tive, 112;  group  of  colleges  as 
remedy,  113,  130-132,  139, 
145-147;  their  relation  to  uni- 
versity, 113;  obstacles  to 
change,  114;  elective  system 
as  fad,  115,  117,  133,  137;  its 
false  assumption  of  student 
aptitudes,  116,  136,  137;  as- 
sumption of  prescribed  work, 
117;  original  conception  of 
college,  118;  true  college  edu- 
cation defined,  119,  120;  fail- 
ure to  develop  faculties  of  stu- 
dents proportionally,  120-122, 
124,  131,  132;  neglect  of 
training  in  observation,  127; 
theories  of  true  aim,  127; 
present  period  of  transition, 
134,  143;  dissatisfaction  of 
laity,  135,  140;  real  issue  of 
problem,  135;  present  un- 
scientific attempt  at  reform, 
136,  140;  premature  special- 
ization through  multiplicity  of 
courses,  136;  group  colleges  a 
reversion  to  original  ideas,  139; 
present  ideals  unfavorable  to 


reform,  140;  eclipse  of  the 
scholar,  141;  mental  discipline 
and  patronage,  141-143;  at- 
tempted adaptation  of  foreign 
systems,  144;  possibility  of 
change  to  group  colleges,  146; 
restitution  of  pure  scholarship, 
147.  See  also  Harvard  Univer- 
sity. 

Commencement-dinner  speeches, 
Eliot  on,  187. 

Constitution,  Federal,  intention- 
ally silent  on  secession,  64. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  death  and 
burial,  51 ;  remains  hanged,  52, 
reversal  of  opinion  concerning, 
52,  55;  statue,  52. 

Culture,  as  aim  of  college  course, 
14;  through  thorough  classic 
training,  14-16,  22,  133. 

Curtis,  G.  W.,  on  ennoblement 
by  Harvard,  151. 

Dana,  R.  H.,  Jr.,  effect  on,  of 
being  "rusticated,"  108. 

Darwin,  Charles,  result  of  college 
training  to,  122-124;  defect- 
ive imaginative  powers,  124; 
achievement,  154. 

Education,  necessity  of  funda- 
mentals, 11;  evils  of  unintelli- 
gent memorizing,  25 ;  educated 
man  defined,  120.  See  also 
Academy,  College  education, 
Harvard  University,  Schools. 

Elective  system,  reaction  desir- 
able, 104,  137;  works  along 
line  of  least  resistance,  107, 121, 
137;  unguided  selection,  107, 
112;  mischievous  fad  of  pre- 
sent form,  115,  117;  argu- 
ments in  favor,  116;  false  as- 
sumption of  student  aptitudes, 
116,  136,  137;  failure  to  de- 
velop the  faculties  proportion- 
ally, 121-124;  author's  sys- 
tem, 133;  premature  speciali- 
zation, 136;  freshmen-advisers, 
137. 

Eliot,    C.  W.,   as   President   of 


INDEX 


197 


Harvard,  155-157;  report  on 
deficit  (1903),  161,  169; 
on  commencement-dinner 

speeches,  187.  See  also  Har- 
vard University. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  on  study  of 
classics,  5. 

England,  sympathy  during  Civil 
War,  59. 

English  language,  neglected  in 
college  course  (1856),  12;  value 
of  literature  as  compared  with 
classic,  45,  46. 

Ethics,  test,  62,  92,  93;  of  John 
Brown's  career,  65;  of  South- 
ern cause,  66,  70,  95;  of  Lee's 
career,  92,  93. 

Entrance  requirements.  See  Col- 
lege education. 

Faculties  of  the  mind,  classifica- 
tion, 119;  need  and  result  of 
harmonious  development,  120, 
129, 132;  failure  of  college  edu- 
cation to  do  this,  120-127; 
importance  of  observing  fac- 
ulty, %126;  training  in  ideal 
college,  130-132. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  idea  bor- 
rowed from  Plato,  31. 

Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  modern 
Paladin,  155. 

German  university  system,  at- 
tempted adaptation  in  America, 
144. 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  equal  glory, 
94;  and  Waterloo,  94,  154. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  culture  through 
study  of  classics,  15. 

Grant,  U.  S.,  importance  of  char- 
acter at  Appomattox,  87-90; 
protects  Lee  after  surrender,  9 1 . 

Greek,  as  college  fetich,  5-48; 
as  fundamental  of  college 
course,  11,  20;  superfluity  of 
college  training,  12;  reason  for 
superfluity,  12;  result  of  thor- 
ough training,  14-16,  22;  not 
essential  to  modern  life,  16; 
in  schools  (1850),  17;  effect  on 


study  of  modern  languages,  21 ; 
effect  of  entrance  requirement 
in,  22-24,  37;  cant  of  intellect- 
ual training  through  elementary 
study  of,  24-27,  36;  result  of 
study  of,  to  John  Adams,  28- 
32;  to  J.  Q.  Adams,  32;  to 
C.  F.  Adams,  Sr.,  33;  .  to  his 
sons,  34-36;  modernists'  pro- 
posal of  entrance  requirement, 
39-41,  44;  study  of  both 
modern  languages  and,  in 
schools  not  possible,  43;  ad- 
vantage to  study  of,  in  mod- 
ernists' proposal,  43;  modern 
value  of  literature,  44-47; 
prescribed  course  of  thorough 
training  in,  advocated,  133. 

Harvard  University,  significance 
of  honorary  degree,  151; 
achievements  since  1853,  155- 
157;  deficit  (1902-06),  161, 162; 
proposed  reduction  in  number 
of  assistants,  161,  169;  com- 
parison of  outgo  (1868,  1903), 

162,  163;  cost  of  each  degree, 

163,  167;  stability  in  division 
of  expenditures,  164;  in- 
crease in  administrative  ex- 
penses, 164;  in  miscellaneous 
expenses,  165;  in  courses  and 
salaries,  165,  166,  168;  de- 
crease in  salaries  per  instructor, 
166;  causes  which  retard  de- 
ficit, 167;  unique  position, 
167,  172;  salaries  too  low, 
168;  increase  of  income  proper 
remedy,  170;  proportion  of 
tuition  fees  to  whole  expenses 
of  students,  171;  recognized 
position  of  its  degrees,  172; 
effect  on  this  of  increased  tui- 
tion fee,  172;  proposed  in- 
crease compatible  with  cost 
and  general  prices,  173;  need 
of  additional  scholarships,  174, 
175;  provision  for  scholar- 
ships in  proposed  plan,  175; 
no  student  pays  fully  for  in- 
struction,   176;    effect  of   in- 


198 


INDEX 


crease  on  number  of  students, 
176-178;  problem  of  adjust- 
ment to  existing  social  condi- 
tions, 178;  and  to  law  of  sur- 
vival of  fittest,  179;  objections 
to  proposal  based  on  scholar- 
ship and  success  in  life,  180; 
on  scholarships  as  charity, 
181;  other  possible  questions, 
182;  growth  since  1806,  190; 
needs  greater  than  ever  before, 
190;  amount  of  money  needed, 
191;  twentieth-century  John 
Harvard,  192,  193.  See  also 
College  education. 

Heredity,  influence  on  men's  ac- 
tions, 77-79. 

Hurlbut,  B.  S.,  on  scholarships 
at  Harvard,  174. 

Individuality,  and  ethical  tests, 
93. 

Jefferson,  Joseph,  honorary  de- 
gree at  Harvard,  151. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  and  Greek, 
30,  31. 

Jenner,  Edward,  anecdote  of  dis- 
covery of  vaccination,  125. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  as  president, 
90. 

Latin,  as  fundamental  of  college 
course,  11,  20;  superfluity  of 
college  training,  12;  reason  for 
superfluity,  12;  result  of  thor- 
ough training,  14-16;  not  es- 
sential to  modern  life,  16;  in 
schools  (1850),  17;  effect  on 
study  of  modern  languages,  21 ; 
modern  uses,  21;  modern 
value  of  literature,  44-47; 
prescribed  course  in,  advo- 
cated, 133. 

Lawyer,  modern  languages  not 
necessary  to  training,  19. 

Lee,  R.  E.,  future  statue  and  its 
svmbolism,  54,  97;  Sumner's 
denunciation,  55;  technical 
traitor,  56;  treason  compared 
with  Washington's,  56,  57,  83, 


84;  hereditary  influences  on, 
81;  on  secession,  82;  reasons 
for  resigning  from  army,  82; 
as  commander,  87;  importance 
of  action  at  Appomattox,  87- 
90;  post-bellum  life  and  loy- 
alty, 90-92;  ethics  of  career, 
92;  highest  type  of  Southern 
cause,  96. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  achievement, 
155. 

Literature,  modern  value  of 
classic,  44-47. 

Livingstone,  David,  154. 

Lodge,  H.  C.  on  views  of  framers 
of  Constitution  as  to  secession, 
61,  63. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  culture  through 
study  of  classics,  15. 

Massachusetts,  author's  identity 
with,  85;  and  State  sover- 
eignty, 85. 

Memory-culture,  vogue  and  evils, 
25. 

Modern  languages,  necessity  of 
training  in,  19;  attitude  of 
colleges  toward,  20;  lack  of, 
as  handicap  to  John  Adams, 
29;  advantage  to  J.  Q. 
Adams,  32;  to  C.  F.  Adams, 
Sr.,  34;  proposed  as  alterna- 
tive entrance  requirement,  39- 
41,  44 ;  necessity  of  thorough 

.  training,  40,  41 ;  value  of  mod- 
ern literature  as  compared  with 
classic,  44-47. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  on  personal  in- 
fluence of  teachers,  101. 

Observing  faculties,  failure  of 
college  education  to  train,  25, 
122, 125-127;  importance,  126. 

Parker,    Theodore,    on    J.    Q. 

Adams,  86. 
Plato,  John  Adams's  opinion,  31. 
Preceptorial  system  at  Princeton, 

111  n.,  138  n.     See  also  Ad- 


INDEX 


199 


Present  age,  spirit  and  advance, 
9,  152-157;  Carlyle's  croak- 
ings  refuted,  153-157;  martial 
glory,  154;  Darwin  and  Liv- 
ingstone, 154;  Garibaldi,  155; 
disinterested  statesmen,  155 ; 
overthrow  of  Napoleon  III, 
155 ;  scholarship  and  success  in, 
180. 

Princeton  College,  preceptorial 
system,  111  n.,  138  n. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  and  course  in 
physics,  118. 

Rebels,  tendency  to  sympathize 

with  other  people's,  58-60. 
Regimental   colors,    question   of 

inscribing  Civil- War  battles  on, 

93-95. 
Rhodes,  J.  F.,  on  Virginia  and 

secession,  76. 


Salaries,  total  increase  at  Har- 
vard (1868,  1903),  163;  in- 
crease considered,  165,  166; 
decrease  in  average,  per  in- 
structor, 166;  too  low,  168. 

Scholarships  at  Harvard,  need 
of  additional,  174,  175;  addi- 
tional, as  part  of  plan  to  in- 
crease tuition  fee,  175, 177, 182; 
practically  all  students  receive 
aid,  176;  scholarship  and  suc- 
cess in  life,  180;  as  charity  and 
as  an  honor,  181. 

Schools,  training  of  high,  in 
fifties,  17,  23;  cant  of  value  of 
study  of  Greek  in,  24-27,  36; 
Greek  fetich,  37;  advantages 
of  public  instruction,  38;  in- 
struction in  both  Greek  and 
modern  languages  not  possible, 
43. 

Scott,  Winfield,  influences  which 
determined  his  loyalty,  79. 

Secession,  issue  settled,  61; 
views  and  actions  of  framers 
of  Constitution,  61-65;  South- 
ern  belief,    65-67;     peaceful, 


impossible  in  1860,  67;  South 
realized  this,  67,  82;  compre- 
hensive policy  of  Southern, 
68,  69;  real  traitors,  70;  Vir- 
ginia's, 70-77;  Lee  on,  82; 
early  views  in  Massachusetts, 
85. 

Second  United  States  Cavalry, 
record  of  early  officers,  80. 

Seward,  W.  H.,  on  Virginia's  first 
vote  on  secession,  74. 

Slavery,  in  Virginia,  70;  future 
judgment  concerning,  95. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  on  early  views 
as  to  secession,  61. 

Southrons,  qualities,  65,  95-97; 
statesmanship,  66.  See  also 
Secession. 

Specialism,  as  aim  of  college 
training,  128;   premature,  136. 

Sumner,  Charles,  on  Lee,  55; 
battle-flags  resolution,  93. 

Thomas,  G.  H.,  character,  80; 
influences  which  determined 
his  loyalty,  81. 

Time  factor  in  judgment  of  civil 
strifes,  53,  93,  95-97. 

Treason,  defined,  56;  considera- 
tion of  motives,  57,  92. 

Tuition  fee  at  Harvard,  propor- 
tion to  whole  expense  of  stu- 
dent, 171;  effect  of  increase 
on  value  of  degrees,  172;  pro- 
posed increase  compatible  with 
general  prices,  173;  increase 
and  increase  of  scholarships, 
174;  probable  effect  of  increase 
on  number  of  students,  176- 
178;  other  practical  aspects  of 
increase,  178,  179;  objections 
to  scheme,  180-182. 

Utilitarianism  in  college  training, 
128,  140,  142. 

Virginia,  slavery  conditions,  70; 
State  pride,  71;  Union  senti- 
ment, 71;  importance  of  her 
first  refusal  to  secede,  71-74; 
why  she  seceded,  74-77. 


200 


INDEX 


Washington,  George,  treason 
compared  with  Lee's,  56, 
83,  84  ;  on  secession,  63 1 
65;  hereditary  influences  on, 
78. 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  and  Gettys- 
burg, 94. 


Wilson,  Woodrow,  on  precepto- 
rial system,  138  n. 

Welling,  J.  C,  on  study  of  Greek, 
5,6. 

Woods,  Leonard,  as  tutor,  109. 

Yale  University,  decrease  in 
courses,  165  n. 


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